Those of us who gathered on the Washington Mall 50 years ago felt the winds of change at our backs. We sensed across that long, hot day — as we walked tightly together, then rested, then listened, then sang — that what was happening was epochal.

We knew we were embracing a new generation of leaders, even as we bowed deeply to the statesmen whose work had bridged the post-Reconstruction and modern civil rights eras: W. E. B. DuBois, who passed away a day before the march, and A. Philip Randolph, who had initiated the March on Washington Movement.

 

WBUR