The March Against the March

We've Forgotten Just How Risky the March on Washington Felt in 1963

In the days and weeks following the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963, the nation’s newspaper editorial pages breathed a collective sigh of relief. The papers had predicted violence—from both marchers and from opponents of segregation—but it had not come to pass. Indeed, the scene was just the opposite. As Russell Baker wrote in The New York Times, “The extraordinary politeness that characterized the day … [and] the sweetness and politeness of the crowd may have set some sort of a national high water mark in …

by Rachel Burstein | August 28, 2013

I Talked My Way Into the March on Washington

A Veteran AP Reporter on the Day That Changed America and Launched Her Career

by Linda Deutsch | August 27, 2013

Through the years, when I tell people that I covered the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, they often ask, “Did you know?”

They mean: Did I know I was present …

Congress Did Use To Be Less Awful

I Went From Helping Build the House Office Building To Covering It. It’s Been a Fraught Love Affair.

by Robert G. Kaiser | July 22, 2013

Most Americans can’t stand Congress. I’ve been hooked on it for years. I’ve been an aficionado of our legislative branch for half a century, since I was a kid of …

Ms. Lawrence Goes to Washington

But the Rest of the Country Thinks I’m in Sin City

by Marie Lawrence | February 15, 2012

Exactly one year ago, I was packing my suitcases to move from my childhood home in north Texas to a three-bedroom group house in Washington, D.C. My mother, standing close …

Clearing the Benches

Hyper Partisanship in Washington Decimates Federal Courts

by Jason LaBau | December 12, 2011

“The benches are empty! The benches are empty!”

Whether you are attending a Tea Party meeting or an Occupy Wall Street protest, you are unlikely to hear that rallying cry. But …

Keeping the United States United

At Washington Conference, Studying What Divides and Unites Americans

June 13, 2011

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor opened a conference on social cohesion in the United States by offering up the method of bringing people together she used as majority …

Washington D.C.