Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will observe Monday's 60th anniversary of the March on Washington by meeting with organizers of the 1963 gathering and relatives of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
The Oval Office meeting will be held six decades after President John F. Kennedy and King met at the White House on the morning of the march on Aug. 28, 1963. All of King's children have been invited to meet with Biden, White House officials said.
Biden also will speak later Monday at a White House reception commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan, nonprofit legal organization that was established at Kennedy's request to help advocate for racial justice.
Two White House officials provided details of the Democratic president and vice president's plans on the condition of anonymity because their schedules have not been officially announced.
The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom is still considered one of the greatest and most consequential racial justice demonstrations in U.S. history.
The nonviolent protest attracted as many as 250,000 people to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and provided the momentum for passage by Congress of landmark civil rights and voting rights legislation in the years that followed. King was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.
Black civil right leaders and a multiracial, interfaith coalition of allies will gather in Washington to mark six decades since the first march. Biden will be flying back to Washington on Saturday after a week of vacation with his family in California's Lake Tahoe region.
