On August 28, 1963, photographer Leonard Freed (1929-2006) captured the determined, yet exhausted, marchers who traveled from all over the US to Washington, DC, to rally for civil and political rights. Roughly 250,000 people gathered to hear Martin Luther King, Jr.'s historic "I Have A Dream" speech, but Freed snapped iconic shots of the marchers themselves as they carried signs and held hands.
Later, Freed traveled throughout Israel as a freelance photographer, as well as photographing plague victims in India, Pope John XXIII in Rome, and orphanages in Romania. He returned to the US to capture children playing and police working in Harlem, and King, after he received the Nobel Peace Prize.
To mark the historic march's 50th anniversary, an exhibition of the acclaimed traveling photo exhibition, "This is the Day: Leonard Freed's Photographs of the 1963 March on Washington," will be on display through October 12 at the James W. Palmer Gallery in Main Building at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie. (845) 437-5370.