August 28 in History

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a crowd of more than 200,000 people gathered for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Broadcast to a national television audience, the address became the most recognized statement of the American civil rights movement and one of the most celebrated speeches in the country's history. It gave moral and rhetorical shape to demands for racial equality at a moment when Congress was weighing major civil rights legislation.

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, held on August 28, 1963, brought a quarter of a million people to the National Mall in the nation's capital, making it one of the largest political demonstrations in American history up to that time. It is best remembered for Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, but the gathering was also a broad call for civil rights legislation and economic justice, and it became a defining image of the American civil rights movement.