Collected here are a series of updates from Washington Post reporters who were on the ground at the Rev. Al Sharpton's "Reclaim the Dream" rally as the event was unfolding. Read our formal report here.
The intersection of Independence Avenue and 17th street was a crossroads of expressions and participants from both events came together.
As one group of black women chanted "Yes we did and get over it," those part of the Glenn Beck rally clapped and passed out Restore the Honor bottles of water.
But Brett Cummings of Gordon Ga wasn't happy. "Look at the statement if we had all come together as one." Katheryn Travis who came to Beck Rally from Knoxville Tenn was almost in tears. "Dr King wanted all of us to come together. We have to believe that."
- Robert Pierre
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When the Sharpton rally reached the mall, most of the crowd from Beck's rally had begun to disperse. Those remaining, mostly smiled politely. "We love Obama! We like Obama!" those in Sharpton's rally yelled.
"Glen Beck, we're going to show you. We ain't going to let Glenn Beck turn us around," one man shouted into a mega phone. The crowd followed him. A few people took photos as they chanted and walked down Constitution Avenue. "We need to be shouting 'we are America,'" said one woman in Sharpton's rally. "See all those tea baggers." The two crowds mostly gawked at each other and smiled.
- Krissah Thompson
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The march has started and is moving slowly.
-- Krissah Thompson
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Martin Luther King III will speak at the King memorial. Code Pink is also at the rally, along with other anti-war protesters. The crowd showcases a mixture of progressive/liberal causes.
-- Krissah Thompson
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"Let the line stretch. They're already going to say there were only 2,000 or 3,000 of you here," Sharpton said. "If people start heckling, smile at them. This ain't about you, it's about Dr. King."
-- Krissah Thompson
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Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the ralliers gathered at Dunbar High School that education is the civil rights issue of this generation. "Parents: Turn off the television. Educators: We have to stop making excuses," he said. "The dividing line in our country today is less around white and black and more about educational opportunity. We've been too satisfied with second-class schools."
He made no mention of the large rally Glenn Beck organized on the Mall.
-- Krissah Thompson
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"Shame on them. We still have a dream. We are here to let those folks on the Mall know that they don't represent the dream," said Jaime Contreras, president of SEIU-32BJ. "They sure as hell don't represent me. They represent hate-mongering and angry white people. The happy white people are here today. We will not let them stand in the way of the change we voted for!"
On the racial divisions evident in the rallies today: "We can either remain complacent under the guise of a post-racial society," said Cynthia Butler-McIntyre, national president of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. "We came today to say that is a lie and the truth is not in it."
"I'll say what Dr. King once said: 'We may have come here on different ships but right now we're in the same boat,' " said radio host Warren Ballentine.
-- Krissah Thompson
"This is America. All groups ought to have the opportunity to speak and give their point of view. We've been at the Mall," said the Rev. W. Franklin Richardson, president of Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon, N.Y. "It's all right with me that they are at the Mall today because we are at the White House."
"They were told not to bring signs. Can you imagine Martin Luther King telling his marchers not to bring signs?" said Benjamin Jealous, president of the NAACP. "First on the list was don't bring signs. The second was don't bring your guns."
-- Krissah Thompson
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The Rev. Al Sharpton said in an interview before he spoke to thousands at his rally in Northwest Washington that "people are clear in what Dr. King's dream was about and we will not react to those who try to distort that dream."
Sharpton was one of a number of prominent leaders who condemned Glenn Beck's rally despite the tone that has been struck.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who was an aide to Martin Luther King Jr. and was at the 1963 march, said, "When I look at my television, I don't see the King crowd of blacks and whites together."
NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said: "We are not sure what the message of the Beck rally is since he told them to leave their signs at home. We have revitalize jobs and schools and reclaim Dr. King's dream."
-- Hamil R. Harris
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"Don't let anyone tell you that they have the right to take their country back," Avis Jones DeWeever, executive director of the National Council of Negro Women told the crowd at the Rev. Al Sharpton's rally. "It's our country, too. We will reclaim the dream. It was ours from the beginning." The crowd roared.
-- Krissah Thompson
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Representatives are here from various District political campaigns, labor unions and churches, as well as radio listeners to Joe Madison and the Rev. Al Sharpton.
-- Krissah Thompson
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They will have speakers at the rally until 1 p.m., after which the five-mile march will begin, reducing the chance for a conflict. Radio host Joe Madison says the line at Dunbar High School is still wrapped around the block because of a bottleneck through the field door.
A good portion of the football field and all of the bleachers are filled. The dozens of speakers here each have three minutes on the mike and will touch on everything from ending gun violence and gay rights to voting privileges for the District.
-- Krissah Thompson
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A gospel choir took the stage after a fervent prayer by Barbara Williams-Skinner. The crowd quietly sang along. "What do you do when you've given your all? Child, you just stand." Williams-Skinner made strong ties between the 1963 rally where Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of his "dream" and the rally that drew hundreds of people to Dunbar High School in Northwest Washington. "Like Dr. King, we believe that the bank of justice is not bankrupt," she said. "We thank you God for raising up President Barack Obama as a small down payment on that dream."
Bianca Farmer, a senior at Dunbar High School, received big applause when she told the crowd not to stop at celebrating Obama. "We must be fearful of stopping there," she said. "The fight is not in the same arena as it was 47 years ago but the fight lives on."
"Part of the dream has come a reality but other parts have not," said Larry Handfield, president of Bethune Cookman College. "In this country still today there are cities where far less than 30 percent of black males are graduating to high school, therefore the dream is not yet complete."
-- Krissah Thompson
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The bleachers still weren't filled 10 minutes before the "Reclaim the Dream" rally organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton was scheduled to start. Charles "Horse" Dobson had just arrived and looked around at the crowd, which was rocking to a live band playing old rhythm-and-blues tunes.
"King was about bringing us together, not just black people but all people," Dobson said.
The scene brought back memories for him. He was a second-grader living in a neighborhood nearby when the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. School was out early. The neighborhood was on fire with riots that blazed.
"Things have changed a lot," he said. But some things had not changed -- to some extent racial divisions were still on display. The crowd at Dunbar was mostly black. The crowd at a rally organized by Glenn Beck near the Lincoln Memorial was mostly white. "King's dream was to bring us together," he said. "There's still a division. It's all wrong."
-- Krissah Thompson
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The crowd at the Sharpton rally, which has the feel of a concert right now, is small -- with a few hundred people and a long line around Dunbar High School. It's predominantly black -- though not exclusively.
-- Krissah Thompson
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Joyce White arrived at a what she called a counter-march to Fox News host Glenn Beck's rally. She came to remember the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech but also to show her opposition to Beck.
"If we hadn't elected a black president, do you think they would be doing this today?" she asked.
She recently retired and brought her grandson Troy to witness what she said would be a historic event. "Reclaim the Dream" T-shirts with black and white pictures of King were available for $10 near vendors selling wooden statues and Kinte cloth.
Tehuti Imhotep came from Baltimore with posters depicting black history from the middle passage through King's 1968 march in support of trash haulers in Memphis. Imhotep shouted at passersby: "This is our real history. [Beck's] trying to redefine the civil rights movement," he said. "How insensitive! King was about bringing people together. This man Beck is pulling people apart."
-- Krissah Thompson
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10:22 a.m.
Several hundred people gathered at Dunbar High School as a band sang Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" at a rally that the Rev. Al Sharpton is calling the "Reclaim the Dream" march.
-- Krissah Thompson
