Struggle For Equality Continues 50 Years After March On Washington

Struggle For Equality Continues 50 Years After March On Washington: WASHINGTON (AP) — Taking stock of progress both made and still to come, Americans of all backgrounds and colors massed on the National Mall on Wednesday to hear President Barack Obama and civil rights pioneers commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech on the same spot where he gave unforgettable voice to the struggle for racial equality 50 years earlier.

It was a moment rich with history and symbolism: the first black president poised to stand where King first sketched his dream.

Marchers walked the streets of Washington behind a replica of the transit bus that Rosa Parks once rode when she refused to give up her seat to a white man. Midafternoon, the same bell was to ring that once hung in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., before the church was bombed in 1963.

Former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were part of the lineup, too, with George W. Bush sending a statement of support. Oprah Winfrey, Forest Whitaker and Jamie Foxx led the celebrity contingent.