University of Maryland Law Professor Larry Gibson was a 21-year-old student at Howard University when he went to the March on August 28, 1963. Here's an excerpt from his conversation with Fraser Smith.
Well, I joined the gathering about 11th street. And initially stopped at the grounds of the Washington Monument because that’s where they had kind of a headquarters there, an organizing headquarters because I saw a friend of mine there, Tom Kahn who was close friend of Bayard Rustin who’s like the principal organizer of the March. I spoke briefly with Tom. And interestingly enough that’s the only other person that I spoke with throughout the rest of the evening, the rest of the day. And then I proceeded to, to walk the Mall. The March went from the grounds of the Washington Monument up to the Lincoln Memorial. And what I remember about it is that first of all, it was an awful lot of people. And I frankly was a little surprised that I didn’t see along the way anybody that I knew there. That there were these thousands and thousands of people who were interested in civil rights, and I didn’t know any of them. That was memorable.
The other was that I walked along with a group that was mainly from unions. The people were mainly from unions. And I had not up until then made the close connection between the labor movement and the civil rights movement. And in fact I was a little surprised. I hadn’t realized until the day of the March on Washington, what the full name of the March on Washington was…And I hadn’t realized that it was this jobs element [to what] this march was all about.