A late August tradition each year has been a recreation of the historic March on Washington, a milestone in America’s Civil Rights Movement. This year marked the 60th Anniversary of the first observance.

Thousands gathered this past Saturday at the National Mall to mark the 60th anniversary of that first March. The crowd was smaller this year, but the message was loud and clear: we have made some progress in the fight for equality, but we have yet to reach the promised land.

The August 28, 1963 rally brought an estimated 250,000 people to the Nation’s Capital to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his iconic “I Have A Dream” Speech, while standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The march is widely credited with helping to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act (1965).

The lasting image of the March on Washington is the black-and-white footage of the King speech. It is considered a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement, even though its impact was not immediately felt. King’s speech did not even make the front page of The Washington Post the next day.

Sixty years later, the battle for equality has expanded. The faces of the movement now included women fighting for equal jobs and equal pay, other ethnic groups and members of the LGBTQ community. None of them were mentioned in 1963.

The images from that first gathering may fade from our collective memory, but the cause of justice and equality must never fade from our hearts or minds.