At 60th anniversary, Denver's Rev. James Peters remembers March on Washington
60 years ago, an August day marked a turning point in American history. It was the day Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington.
The event produced a groundswell of support around the country for social changes, leading to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
A Denver man who was there is recalling the memory of that day, what led up to it, and how it changed him.
Reverend James Peters recalls clearly his interactions with King.
Prior to serving 28 years as pastor of Denver's New Hope Baptist Church, Peters led a church in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
"He presented me with a plaque. In front of my whole congregation and the whole city and everything," Peters reminisced.
At the age of 30, Peters helped organize three cars on a train to travel from Bridgeport to Washington, D.C. It was Aug. 28, 1963.
"It was just a wonderful, wonderful day, the weather was perfect, and the people were excited. They were singing and dancing and having a good time. There at the March on Washington."
Washington, D.C. was Peters's hometown, and it was deeply segregated.
He said, "All the way to high school, never went to school with anybody white. They had a separate school system, separate restaurants, separate movies, everything was separate - churches, everything was segregated."
Edna J. Belton fueled a love of poetry and speechmaking in her son, James, and he began preaching at the age of 19.
"The society told me that I was nobody," said Peters, still overcome by emotion. "But my mother told me that I was always somebody. And it was a wonderful experience."
The turnout for the 1963 march was beyond anyone's expectations.
"We were up by the Lincoln Memorial, thousands and thousands, you've never seen so many people," Peters recalled.
"A lot of people had to bring their children because they said 'this is history', it was. A lot of tears were shed. Mine and the others because we had fought for this for so long."
Reverend Peters recalls the divisions in the civil rights movement, and King's unique ability to unite people, "he could say it without making people angry - trying to talk about the greatness of our country."
King projected the beauty and pride of the nation with lines such as "Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside..."
"Martin was superb," Peters said. "You promised us in the Bill of Rights and all these declarations that all people are created equal, well, we want our share."
Peters went on to chair the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Never hesitating to implore Americans to stop looking the other way on the scourge of discrimination and racism.
"I've given the speech at Red Rocks on Easter Sunday, I've had some great experiences," he said.
Leading a community of faith and blessed with a large family.
"I've had a rich and colorful ministry, and it's taken me a lot of places, but I owe it all to Martin," Peters said.
A poet himself - Peters said on MLK's death that King was able "to remove the cataracts of racism from the eyes of otherwise healthy men who were basically good."
Although retired, he's not done preaching the need to do better as a country.
"We believe that the dream of America has not been lost and that we are here to make things better."
We are honoring the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington.
All week we'll be sharing stories featuring people's memories of the March on Washington, and this Friday we'll host a one hour special "Still Marching" on our streaming channel, CBS News Colorado. That's this Friday, Aug. 25 at 7 p.m.