Photographs by Stanley Tretick

In the days and weeks following the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, photographs captured by the likes of Danny Lyon and Bob Adelman offered Americans a sense of the sheer scale of the landmark protest. On August 28, 1963, an estimated 250,000 people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for a nonviolent demonstration seeking civil and economic rights for Black Americans. Then the largest gathering of its kind, the march was immortalized in images of Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech, crowds filling the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and protesters locking hands in a show of unity.

Of the photographic luminaries present at the march, Stanley Tretick is perhaps most intimately associated with the U.S.’s then-president, John F. Kennedy. Two months after the demonstration, Tretick took a now-iconic snapshot of John F. Kennedy Jr. peeking out from his father’s desk in the Oval Office. His photos of the first family defined the public’s vision of Camelot, as the 35th president’s idealized administration came to be called. But Tretick’s images of the March on Washington went unseen for decades, hidden in a Marine Corps footlocker with other mementos from his lengthy career.

John Lewis and A. Philip Randolph
John Lewis (right, with A. Philip Randolph as they prepare to speak) exhorted the nation: "Wake up, America. Wake up! Fore we cannot stop, and we will not be patient." © 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC

Before Tretick’s death at age 77 in 1999, he left the locker to one of his close friends, writer Kitty Kelley. When she opened it, she discovered a cache of photos, diaries, letters and other ephemera.

“I didn’t just inherit a trunk,” Kelley told the Herald-Tribune in 2012. “I inherited a whole archive, about 500,000 photographs, slides and negatives. My first reaction was to donate it, but I did a lot of research and I found that while it’s very nice to donate, most of those donations end up in the basements of the Library of Congress or the archives. They’re never really seen.”

Instead of donating Tretick’s images, Kelley published them in two separate books: Capturing Camelot: Stanley Tretick’s Iconic Images of the Kennedys, published in 2012, and Let Freedom Ring: Stanley Tretick’s Iconic Images of the March on Washington, released in 2013 to mark the 50th anniversary of the demonstration. As Kelley explains in Let Freedom Ring, Tretick covered the march for Look, but his work went unpublished “because of the bimonthly magazine’s long lead time.”

Preview thumbnail for 'Let Freedom Ring: Stanley Tretick's Iconic Images of the March on Washington

Let Freedom Ring: Stanley Tretick's Iconic Images of the March on Washington

A bestselling author and a legendary photographer present an illuminating look at a pivotal moment in our nation's history.

In 2013, Smithsonian magazine exclusively published Tretick’s photos alongside an oral history of the march. Featuring comments from Representative John Lewis, entertainer Harry Belafonte, and activists such as Julian Bond and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the testimony “remind[ed] us of who we were then as a nation, and where we would move in the struggle to overcome our history,” wrote reporter Michael A. Fletcher.

In honor of the 60th anniversary of the march, Smithsonian is resurfacing Tretick’s snapshots. Below, explore a selection of the photographer’s work, which captures moments like Lewis and A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a lead organizer of the demonstration, preparing to give speeches and King, Lewis and other civil rights leaders meeting with Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson shortly after the march.

Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King Jr. with the Reverend Eugene Carson Blake. Once the march began, at least 250,000 participants materialized. © 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC
March on Washington 5
Protesters, including members of civil rights, labor and religious organizations, crowded onto the grass surrounding the Reflecting Pool, raising signs high into the air. © 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC
March on Washington 7
Crowds line the Reflecting Pool during the March on Washington. © 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC
March on Washington 9
Before the speeches began, civil rights leaders, including A. Philip Randolph (front row, center) and Martin Luther King Jr., gathered at the Lincoln Memorial. © 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC
March on Washington 1
Freedom Riders, who had put their lives on the line in the South, were a highly visible presence on the National Mall. © 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC
March on Washington 10
“A group of young people from an NAACP chapter came over the horizon,” recalls SNCC activist Courtland Cox. “Once the flow started, it was just volumes of people coming.” © 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC
March on Washington 11
“What we did, the ten of us, was grab each other’s arms, made a line across the sea of marchers,” recalls John Lewis. “People literally pushed us, carried us all the way, until we reached the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial.” © 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC
March on Washington 12
Protesters at the march carried signs demanding equal rights and full employment. © 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC
March on Washington
On the day of the march, Martin Luther King Jr. exhorted the nation: “We have come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now.” (C) 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC
March on Washington
Many women joined in the march. The only female speaker that day was jazz singer Josephine Baker, who was joined on stage by Rosa Parks and Daisy Bates. © 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC
JULAUG13_N16_MarchOnWashington-963.jpg
“I remember the march as joyful,” says D.C. Congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. “That it bloomed into the largest mass movement the country had seen came to us only when we stood in the presence of so many Americans.” © 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC
Civil rights leaders meeting with members of Congress
On the morning of the march, civil rights leaders (including Martin Luther King, foreground left, and John Lewis, foreground right) first met with members of Congress (Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, center). © 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC
March on Washington
“We had no idea there would be so many people—as far as you could see there were heads,” recalls activist Juanita Abernathy. “Which said to us in the movement: ‘Your work has not been in vain. We are with you. We are part of you.’” © 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC
March on Washington
“People just poured in from every direction,” recalls activist Barry Rosenberg. “People were greeting each other; I got chills, I got choked up. People were hugging and shaking hands and asking ‘Where are you from?’” © 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC
March on Washington
After the march, civil rights leaders met in the White House with the president and vice president. “President Kennedy stood in the doorway of the Oval Office and greeted each one of us,” recalls John Lewis. © 2013 to the Estate of Stanley Tretick LLC

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Meilan Solly

Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history.

Stanley Tretick was one of the preeminent photojournalists of his era. He captured images of President John F. Kennedy, the March on Washington, and other iconic moments and people in American history.