The photograph shows a young man in close-up, his gaze concentrated upward—possibly directed at a speaker’s platform or an event outside the frame. The image was taken in the context of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which hundreds of thousands of people participated. The portrait conveys the personal dimension of the civil rights movement: alongside the masses and banners stood concrete individuals with individual expectations and hopes. The march was directed against legal racial segregation and discrimination and demanded equal civil rights as well as economic equality for the Black population of the United States.