Thousands of Americans on Saturday commemorated the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, a pivotal event in the 1960s U.S. civil rights movement, at which Martin Luther King Jr. gave his galvanizing "I have a dream" speech.

The 1963 march brought more than 250,000 people to the nation's capital to push for an end to discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Many credit the show of strength with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

This year's rally took place at the Lincoln Memorial, the backdrop to King's impassioned call for equality, as many speakers warned that much work was yet to be done.