The photograph shows two demonstrators in a densely packed crowd at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. In the foreground is a woman wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat, her hand raised in laughter; beside her sits a man in a suit and tie wearing a banded hat. The woman’s open, exuberant expression conveys the festive and at the same time determined mood that eyewitnesses and film recordings of the day consistently describe. The March on Washington assembled several hundred thousand people and ranked among the largest peaceful mass protests in the history of the United States. The participation of people from different backgrounds and generations was a deliberate sign of the civil rights movement, which on that day demanded equal civil rights and economic participation for the black population.