rights movement -- Diane Nash, Ella Baker, Dorothy Height and many others -- but were only included in the program that day after one woman spoke up.

"We will not solve education or housing or public accommodations as long as millions of Negroes are treated as second-class economic citizens and denied jobs," he said.

In 1998, Time Magazine included him in its list of Builders & Titans Of The 20th Century. Irving Bluestone, Reuther's former administrative assistant, shared this popular story to explain who Reuther was at the March on Washington: "Standing close to the podium were two elderly women. As (Reuther) was introduced, one of the women was overheard asking her friend, 'Who is Walter Reuther?' The response: 'Walter Reuther? He's the white Martin Luther King.'"

An openly gay manorganized the march in less than two months

Bayard Rustin is "the most important leader of the civil rights movement you probably have never heard of," as LZ Granderson put it in his recent CNN column. Not only did he organize the march in a matter of months, Rustin is credited with teaching King about nonviolence. He also helped raise funds for the Montgomery bus boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Council.

During the time, his sexual orientation was known, and he was often in the background to prevent it from being used against the movement.

Fifty years after the march, Rustin, who died in 1987, will be honored with a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in November.

It wasn't the first planned 'March on Washington'

Labor leader