Oscar Winner Denzel Washington will narrate the PBS documentary "The March," a documentary which chronicles the dramatic stories behind the 1963 March on Washington, Deadline.com reported.
The historic March on Washington, which featured Martin Luther King's iconic "I Have a Dream" speech. That speech was delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, bringing people of all different creeds to the nation's capital in an effort for equal rights. The watershed moment in the civil rights movement helped lead to sweeping civil rights legislation two years later.
"I never heard much about what was going on outside," CBS anchor Roger Mudd said. he said, describing his scant knowledge of the civil rights movement when reporting on it at that time. "My first-hand look at the marvelous men and women who participated in that... was for me a revelation and I dare say for the men and women on Capitol Hill."
The march sent "a signal to the nation, particularly to the center of power that... it was no longer a regional movement but a national movement" Mudd added.
Washington is not a stranger to using his talents connected to the civil rights movement. He famously portrayed icon Malcolm X in Spike Lee's 1992 film.
"The March," which airs on August 27, includes insights from some of the participants like Clarence Jones, a King aide, Joyce Ladner, field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; and Stanford history professor Clayborne Carson.
President Lyndon Johnson signed into legislation the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in July of that year. The law outlawed major forms of discrimination against racial, ethnic, national and religious minorities, and women. It also ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities, which served the general public.
