The rest of the day was a blur, with a few of memories standing out: I remember being part of the crowd marching west on Constitution Avenue, past the already 20-year-old "temporary" shed-like office buildings built for the workers who flooded Washington during World War II. I remember the near-constant singing of anthems such as "We Shall Overcome." I will never forget the mood of hope, and the near universality of smiling, friendly faces, and courteous behavior. I recall photographing Connecticut Democratic Senator Thomas Dodd. I recall hearing Peter, Paul, and Mary, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez. I remember that by early afternoon it was ungodly hot, and my friend and I ended up sitting on the edge of the northwest corner of the Reflecting Pool, near the steps leading up to the Lincoln Memorial, our feet dangling in the tepid water.

March attendees on the National Mall, in front of the Washington Monument. (B.D. Colen)

The speeches? In that oppressive sun and heat, having been up since the previous day? Sadly, I remember little. I wish I could say I remembered hearing John Lewis, and Whitney Young, and Bayard Rustin, but I can’t. I do remember hearing A. Philip Randolph speak in his booming, oh-so-formal baritone – who could forget that? And of course I remember hearing Martin Luther King tell us about The Dream. I remember being moved by the speech, by its magnificent cadences, and even today I recall being almost levitated with that final, thunderous, and magnificent prediction that America would become a nation in which "all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’"

Did I realize at the time that I had heard what is today ranked as the greatest political speech of the 20th century? Did I realize that I had just heard, was experiencing, one of the great moments in modern American history? Did I understand the real import of that day? I don't think so. Nor do I think most of the other people baking in the heat quite grasped the grandeur of the moment. By the time Dr. King walked away from the podium that afternoon, the majority of us had been traveling, marching, and parboiling for anywhere from 15 to 24 hours. It’s hard to remember much else, other than somehow ending up on the train for the long trip home.

Courtesy of B.D. Colen

When I went into the office the next morning with my nine exposed rolls of film, thoroughly exhausted but still vibrating from the emotional high, the editor told me he wanted me to write a "story" to go with my photos. I hadn't a clue about how to write a news story, or real commentary for that matter, which is my way of apologizing for the naïvete my first newspaper byline. In its defense, I believe to this day that I captured the essence of the day. Sadly, the photos and my little "story" ran under a headline reading, "Our man, 17, marched on Washington," which, needless to say, missed the point of the march and grossly belittled its significance. Here’s what I wrote, six days past my 17th birthday:

Wednesday's March on Washington radiated a feeling of Peace and urgency. There were about 200,000 guests in our nation's capitol and yet there was only one minor incident, and that bit of trouble was caused by a bunch of neo-Nazis and not marchers. Everyone was friendly and full of enthusiasm. People didn't seem to mind getting pushed and shoved, even the police were friendly and courteous. All the people in the parade, blacks and whites, adults and children, Christians and Jews, all marched as brothers. People were tired from traveling long distances, but they didn't take it out on other people. Although everyone was friendly to all outward appearances, there seemed to be an underlying feeling of great tension, and urgency. People were parading for a cause which has been shoved into the background for the last hundred years and has finally reached a crisis. The most strongly emphasized word in all the slogans and songs was 'NOW!' People want their constitutional rights NOW, not tomorrow, or a week from now, or five years from now, but NOW, today. People were polite and courteous on the 28th, but how long will they remain passive? The 200,000 were just a representative force. All the people behind the civil rights movement could not have possibly gotten into Washington. I think the March showed that these people are willing to politely ask for their rights but they may not be quite so polite in the future if they don't get what they're after NOW.

NOW did not come quickly. It did not come without further suffering and bloodshed. Yes, the march was followed in surprisingly quick succession by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 -- neither of which would have passed without the boost provided by the horror of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, the political brilliance of President Lyndon Johnson, and the dedication of Senator Hubert Humphrey. But those victories were followed by a string of summers in which large areas of major American cities burned as a result of the pent-up expectations and rage of black Americans trapped in a cycle of poverty and oppression. King was quite predictably assassinated five years after the march, as was Bobby Kennedy, who in his campaign for the Democratic nomination for president had picked up King’s torch.