Through 's six-word stories, we'll meet some of the people who witnessed that history and hear their memories and reflections on race relations in America today.
With hindsight, we now know the March on Washington was a peaceful event. But two former D.C. police officers who worked the event that day remember that there was no guarantee that the day would go smoothly.
Back in 1963, Joseph Burden, who is black, and Martin Niverth, who is white, were both rookie cops with the D.C. police department, living in a highly segregated city and working for a segregated police force.
"If you walked a foot beat, you walked with another white officer," Niverth says. "If you were assigned to a car, you were assigned to a car with another white officer."
"I do recall, at one time, they passed out 3x5 cards and ... instructed us to write down whether you would like to work with an integrated partner," Burden remembers. "The 'noes' were overwhelming. So it was quite obvious that, as far as they [the white officers] were concerned, they didn't want to work with us. And I guess they really had very little use for Martin Luther King."
