In the summer of 1963 I had just finished my first year of college at the University of Wisconsin -- Oshkosh.

My roommate that first year was from Washington D.C.

In August my family went to New York for a vacation and I got invited to Washington to visit my friend. I accepted.

His mother was a big deal real estate broker in the city and tried to line up things for us to do that did not involve trying to sneak into bars.

One morning she said she had a couple of free tickets to this march at the Lincoln Memorial and wanted to know if we were interested. The march was supposed to support the civil rights bill that John F. Kennedy was trying to have passed.

We thought there might be girls there, so we went. Our seats were stage left in front of the Lincoln Memorial in the third or fourth row.

My friend and I liked Marlon Brando, Harry Belafonte, Peter, Paul and Mary and Joan Baez.

Then just before Bob Dylan was scheduled to sing there was a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King. Everybody around us got real excited when he said, "Free at last. Free at last. Thank God, Almighty, we are free at last."

At the time we thought it was a mighty fine speech but there weren't many girls there.

Just goes to show how absolutely stupid a couple of white college boys could be.