Original AP story on the 1963 March on Washington
In a great, dramatic demonstration, more than 200,000 Negroes and white sympathizers massed before the Abraham Lincoln Memorial today and demanded across-the-board abolition of race discrimination.
Then, after the "march for jobs and freedom," President Kennedy asserted that "the cause of 20 million Negroes has been advanced" by the gigantic, orderly assemblage.
Kennedy conferred with 10 march leaders at the White House and issued a statement pledging a continued drive for civil rights legislation, for the removal of job barriers, for better education and full employment.
It was appropriate, he said, that the demonstration was conducted before the nation's shrine to the Great Emancipator. The contribution thus made to the Negro cause is great, he said, "but even more significant is the contribution to all mankind."
By special train, plane, buses by the thousand, private automobiles and even in some cases on foot, the marchers poured into the capital. As they headed homeward tonight, the small army of police and National Guardsmen mustered to cope with feared disorder could report that only three arrests had been made — and not one of these was a demonstrator.
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http://bigstory.ap.org/article/original-ap-story-1963-march-washington