2 Time March 2–9, 2020One Of The mOsT remarkable dOcumenTs in
our archives is a letter that Martin Luther King Jr.
sent to TIME founder Henry Luce upon being
named what was then called Man of the Year.
1963, King wrote, will long be remembered as a
period “that has carved for itself a uniqueness in
history.” It was the year the civil rights movement
entered a new stage—crowned by one of the most
powerful and enduring speeches in American
history. The moment King stepped off the
podium in front of the Lincoln Memorial late
that summer, it was clear the words he’d spoken
there would resonate far beyond the hundreds of
thousands of people gathered on the mall.
King’s “I Have a Dream” speech has since been
woven into the fabric of the nation, memorial-
ized in photographs and grainy video. But what
if we could step through the frame today and
visit that historic scene, see King with our own
eyes, hear his words with our own ears? That’s
what my colleague Mia Tramz, who creates im-
mersive journalistic experiences, wondered back
in 2016 as she walked through the TIME offices,
down a hallway filled with historic photographs.
A life-size print of a photo graph of King, deliver-
ing a different speech at the Lincoln Memorial in
1957, caught her eye. “At that size,” Mia says of the
image, the work of photographer Paul Schutzer,
“it has an immersive quality that’s very much
like virtual reality, and makes you feel as though
you’re standing there.”For the next three years, Mia—with the
help of many partners, including the King es-
tate, executive producers Viola Davis and Julius
Tennon, and the immersive storyteller Alton
Glass—developed and built The March, a travel-
ing exhibit that features a groundbreaking VR
re-creation of the 1963 March on Washington for
Jobs and Freedom. Produced by TIME Studios,
our Emmy- winning film and production division,
it is the first virtualization of the “Dream” speech
and the most lifelike re- creation of a person ever
released in VR. The exhibit will open at Chicago’s
DuSable Museum of African American History on
Feb. 28, and more details can be found at time
.com/the-march.
In all, about 300 people have worked on this
project over the years. That is in addition to
scores of people across the TIME staff, including
Ian Orefice, president of TIME Studios; senior ed-
itor Lily Rothman, who oversaw this special issue;
and art director Victor Williams, who with the
artist Hank Willis Thomas created the cover. You
can read more about the journey in these pages,The MarchFrom the Editor
Edward Felsenthal,
ediTOr-in-chief & ceO
@efelsenThal1957
1964
1965
2013
along with reporting and reflections
by writers, leaders and activists on the
abiding meaning of the march and the
state of equality in America today.
Through thousands of hours of re-
search, we have endeavored to be true
to the history of that August day. But
we at TIME also see the project as a
call to each of us for all that is yet to be
done in the unfinished fight for equal-
ity, including in our own work. Our
hope is that it will not only change
the way we see history, but also help
awaken in all of us an understanding
of the power of our own voice to have a
positive impact on the world.
“In a day where division defines
our country,” notes Mia, “the March
reminds us of what can be accom-
plished when we come together.” Or
as 9-year-old Ashlin C.—one of the
many students across the nation we
asked to reflect on what they would
march for today—puts it: “I stand
up for everyone to get along and be
treated equally.”Co-creators Glass and Tramz with two motion-capture
actors from The March