Grounds For Serious Reflection

The Randolph march was canceled in June 1941 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered an end to discrimination in federal agencies and at defense plants, but the blueprint for a mass rally on the Mall was set. In 1947, a prayer session, as part of an NAACP convention, was held at the Lincoln Memorial, with President Harry S. Truman participating. Ten years later, Randolph organized a prayer pilgrimage, attended by 20,000 people and featuring an address by King.

The 1963 march, capped by King's "I Have a Dream" speech, sealed the Mall's identity as a nexus of political protest.

In the aftermath of King's death, his followers tried to carry on one of his goals -- to mount a Poor People's Campaign on 15 acres in West Potomac Park, southeast of the Lincoln Memorial. In May and June 1968, thousands erected a "Resurrection City" of temporary houses, struggling through the mud and rain to proclaim the need for economic equality. The "city" was dismantled after six weeks, its leaders taking credit for some minor concessions.

The Mall became a destination for other rallies and protests, including the Vietnam War Moratoriums in 1969 and 1971, annual gatherings of advocates for and against legalized abortion, and the 1987 display of the massive quilt made in memory of those who had died from AIDS.

From 1971 to 1975, a musical event called Human Kindness Day was organized to mark racial solidarity. Held near the Washington Monument, Kindness Day attracted 200,000 in 1975, but violence on that day led to its cancellation.

On the 20th anniversary of the 1963 march, about 750,000 people came to the Mall to mark that event and complain that a King holiday was long overdue. Legislation creating the holiday was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan later that year. Now, carved into the steps of the Lincoln Memorial where King stood in 1963 are words commemorating that first March on Washington. Also, a parcel of land near the Mall has been promised for an official King memorial.

And in 1995, a huge television audience saw hundreds of thousands participate in the Million Man March.

The Mall continues to be a place of festivals, concerts and Fourth of July fireworks. But today, in large part because of the civil rights movement, it has become a symbol of free debate, serving as a national megaphone.

"Even people who are critical of America chose the Mall to say we are Americans, too," Bunch says.

The question now is whether the Smithsonian will make room on the 21st-century Mall for a museum that would unavoidably have to tell the history, hidden and celebrated, of the Mall's 19th and 20th centuries.