USA Today

By: Yamiche Alcindor

8/23/13

It's been a half-century since Alix Dobkin, 73, came to the March on Washington. Now she is coming back to march again — albeit older and a bit changed, much like the modern-day civil rights movement.

This week and next, several events will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. On Saturday, thousands are expected to retrace the steps of earlier activists on the National Mall. Organizers say they will highlight unrealized goals from the last march and embrace more groups such as Old Lesbians Organizing for Change, which Dobkin will be representing.

"We need each other for everybody to have freedom," said Dobkin, 73, a retired folk singer and songwriter who lives in Woodstock, N.Y. "The movement is way more inclusive, and it's great. We've learned that's the only way to get social justice."

The 1963 March on Washington was a watershed moment in the American civil rights movement because it was attended by 250,000 people, graced by King's speech at the Lincoln Memorial and followed by the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

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