The idea for the march came from labor activist A. Philip Randolph, then 74. Bayard Rustin, then 51, a cofounder (along with Martin Luther King Jr.) of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), became its key organizer. And an army of volunteers got to work. In the end, it was the largest such demonstration that had ever been held, with an estimated 250,000 marchers. The day culminated in King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, considered to be not only one of his finest moments but one of America’s.

Six decades later, we asked marchers to tell us their most striking memories of the event—and how its effects have rippled through to the present.

Now: Chair, SNCC Legacy Project Then: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) staff member
We organized the march in about 90 days. I had been working on voter registration in the Mississippi Delta, where you could be killed for that work. Organizing the march was not stressful. It was exhilarating.

Now: Retired activist and labor leader Then: National program director for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
I was based in New York City, and I traveled to other cities to get people to attend. From every city I visited, people came to the march.

Now: Sociologist, author and civil rights activist Then: College student and SNCC volunteer

My sister Dorie and I had both been very close to Medgar Evers. We were from Mississippi, and it was important to us to get members of the Mississippi Black community to Washington for the march, so they could see they had support outside of the Deep South.

Now: Congresswoman for the District of Columbia Then: Law student and SNCC organizer

Because the march was unprecedented, the logistics were first of a kind: making sure people knew where to go, how to get buses.

Now: Webmaster, Civil Rights Movement Archive Then: CORE activist
I’d been fighting housing segregation in the L.A. suburbs. My parents had relocated from L.A. to Connecticut, and they managed to lure me east for the summer by saying, “You’d be able to attend the march in Washington, D.C.”

Now: Retired sales and marketing executive Then: College student; volunteer for the march organizing committee
We contacted the bus companies, as well as the airlines. The railroads added special trains to Washington for us.

Now: Retired U.S. Air Force veteran; defense contractor Then: College student
My parents didn’t want me to attend a march of any kind. I was a student at Howard University. Marching could mean losing a job, housing or worse. But I wanted to be part of something that could change America.

Now: Actress, singer and dancer Then: Member of the “celebrity delegation” to the march

On Dr. King’s behalf, Harry Belafonte invited many of us to attend. And of course everybody he invited said, “Absolutely.” We chartered a plane from L.A. to D.C.—Harry was on it, Marlon Brando, Sidney Poitier.

Now: Attorney; former educator Then: High school student and CORE volunteer

Some friends and I from Staten Island wanted to organize a local rally the week before the march, to drum up interest. But you had to go to the local precinct to get a parade permit. As a shy 19-year-old, I couldn’t even face my favorite uncle when he came to visit. But for this, I somehow summoned the courage to ask the sergeant for the paperwork. We held our rally and sent five buses full of marchers to D.C.

Now: Retired education administrator Then: College student

I was about to start my first year of grad school, and I was consumed with getting ready. But then I got a letter from my mother, who planned to attend the march with the Japanese American Citizens League.

“I went through the war years, the relocation camp, and the loss of almost every civil right,” she wrote. “I will stand up and be counted. I hope you will be at my side.” How could I say no?

Now: Singer and actress Then: Member of the SNCC Freedom Singers

I had been studying music, but I decided to pause my education to join the SNCC Freedom Singers, who traveled and performed to fundraise on behalf of the SNCC. The songs of the civil rights movement played a vital role because they kept us from being afraid.

→ Rita Moreno: One thing I remember from our plane ride is that my friend James Garner was nervous about doing this. We didn’t know what the repercussions might be. But what I love is that he came anyway.

I was nervous too. But I thought, It may be the end of a career, but bringing attention to these injustices is more important than one person’s career.

→ Bruce Hartford: The night before the march, I boarded a bus to D.C. Some outlets were reporting that no one would show up; others warned that rioters would turn the capital upside down. Filled with apprehension, none of us could sleep. Hours passed before I noticed the horizon was glowing red. I thought, Are we heading into fire?

The glow was from people snaking up on one side of the highway with flares and torches, holding signs that read “We Shall Overcome” and “We’re With You.” I still choke up thinking about those flares.

→ Norman Hill: At about 6 a.m., I was walking with Courtland Cox and Bayard Rustin toward the Lincoln Memorial. Several reporters recognized Bayard and asked him what was happening. Where were all the people? Bayard pulled out a pocket watch and a piece of paper from inside his jacket. He looked at the watch and the paper, and said to the reporters that everything was right on schedule.

What the reporters didn’t know was that the paper was blank. Bayard had no way of knowing how many people would actually show up.

→ Courtland Cox: Bayard turned to me and asked, “Do you think anybody is coming to this thing?” A minute or so later, we saw NAACP youth marching with their signs. We later learned the highways had been clogged with people trying to get to Washington.

Now: Retired psychologist; civic and civil rights activist Then: College student and factory worker

It was the summer before my junior year in college, and I was working at a factory in Brooklyn. The United Auto Workers Union provided transportation, and we went down on buses.

Now: Actor, singer; played Lionel on The Jeffersons Then: Junior high student

At 13, I was too young to do sit-ins at lunch counters. But my mother felt it was safe for me to go to D.C. with my neighborhood church from Baltimore.

I came up in the age of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals and Live From the Met on the radio. It was a white canvas, but I was beginning to see representation of Black people in the arts. And I was becoming aware that I was a young gay man. So I was fascinated by the march, because this major event was being created and put together by Bayard Rustin, a gay Black man.

→ Eleanor Holmes Norton: People kept calling our New York City office for information, so I was chosen to be the last one there to answer. For that reason, I got to fly to the march. We had not been sure this march would be successful. But I could see from the window as we neared Washington that the march was going to work.

→ Rita Moreno: I was sitting very, very close to Martin Luther King. Sammy Davis Jr. was near me. I was so taken with the majesty of the day that I didn’t even think about the danger.

→ Ed Flanagan: I went to the march alone after working my shift as a waiter at a country club. I was glad to see about a quarter of the people attending weren’t Black—they were our allies.

→ Bruce Hartford: The power of the crowd’s singing is what sticks with me. Song was the movement’s most powerful unifier.

→ Joyce Ladner: What I remember most was that the speech of John Lewis, the SNCC leader who later became a congressman, was censored behind the scenes. The archbishop of Washington wanted to remove some of the more inflammatory lines, like one about activists marching through the South “the way Sherman did.” Randolph convinced John to moderate his message for the good of the movement.

Now: Attorney; chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee; first Black U.S. attorney general Then: Junior high student
I watched the march on TV in Queens, New York. I was 12 years old. I remember John Lewis was one of the main speakers. He was an icon to me.

Dr. King stepped up to the microphone with prepared notes in his hand. But after he’d delivered the first seven and a half paragraphs, Mahalia Jackson, who was on the platform with us, shouted, “Tell ’em about the dream, Martin!” Everything from Martin after that was extemporaneous. He’d used the phrase “I have a dream” at several public gatherings. But until the March on Washington, it never got such a response.

Now: CEO of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change Then: 5-month-old infant

Before the “I have a dream” portion of the speech, my father conveyed that we had the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, but economically, Black people were still lagging behind, 100 years later. Not because of something we did, but because things were stripped from us. He’s giving you the reality, but then giving you his dream, including that his four children would one day not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

→ Monte Wasch: I was on my way back to New York with friends, both Black and white. We staged a sit-in at a diner in Maryland known for its segregation policy. The owner called the cops, and we spent the night at the police station before the charges were dropped. That was our way of celebrating the success of the March on Washington.

→ Thomas Windham: Where I lived, there was this sense of uplift, of pride, of hope replacing despair.

→ Louis Armmand: In the years after the march, I would go on to work in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, where I saw people who, with a third-grade education, having only picked cotton for a living, become some of the most stalwart organizers and fighters in the movement. Because there was hope.

→ Rita Moreno: The march completely changed my life. That’s when I became an official activist. I mean, winning an Oscar was thrilling and wonderful. But this day was way more important. Way more.

→ Bernice King: The march set the precedent for adding demands for legislation to mass demonstrations. It was a blueprint for how you utilize demonstrations to bring about social change.

→ Eleanor Holmes Norton: Out of the march came the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It takes people pressing Congress to make Congress do anything.

→ Rutha Harris: Singing at the march was a wonderful experience, one I shall never, ever forget. Oh, it was indescribable. I’m 82 now, and I’m still singing. I still tell people I was part of the movement. I can say that whatever freedom I have, I got myself.

→ Todd Endo: Today five generations of Endos have participated in civil rights causes. When my mother joined the March on Washington, she found her voice, and she created a family tradition of striving for justice and equality for all Americans.

I wasn’t born until a few months after the march, but it has affected my life. A friend and I decided to create a documentary film festival about men and women who aren’t famous but who helped change a nation. We called it the March on Washington Film Festival, and we’ve done it every year for the past 10 years. The festival is online at marchonwashingtonfilmfestival.org. AARP is a sponsor.

→ Eric Holder: Watching the march on TV helped form my view of the world. It made me believe in the value of protest and gave me a sense that if people came together, they could accomplish big things.

John Lewis could point to any number of things to show that his hard work as an activist and congressman had been meaningful. But at least one of them was that they made it possible for someone like me to become the U.S. attorney general. On my last day in office, in 2015, he told me, “I’ve admired the work you’ve done.” And he hugged me and started crying. I cried too.

→ Damon Evans: Today we are still fighting for some of the same things. We still have not reached “there.” But I am so grateful that at such a young age I could see people of different backgrounds and beliefs come together for one cause: equality for everybody.