Associated Press

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledges the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial for his "I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington, D.C., in this Aug. 28, 1963, file photo. The march was organized to support proposed civil rights legislation and end segregation. King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, advocating nonviolent action against America's racial inequality. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., in April 1968. More about Martin Luther King Jr. Day Observances honor King's memory, dreams | Holiday events Martin Luther King Jr. Day closings Editorial: Fit for a King: The long march to equality was no sure thing Perspectives: Martin Luther King Jr.: All-American Associated Press: Background on Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Associated Press: Timeline: Martin Luther King Jr. / 1929 -1968

Lilia Huguley boarded the bus at First African Presbyterian on 42nd Street in Philadelphia. It was about 6 a.m. on an August day in 1963. She was headed to the great March on Washington.

Most of those who took their seats on the bus were black, but a few whites climbed on board, too. Ms. Huguley, who now lives in Wilkinsburg, was among the youngest.

She joined two other local residents last week in recalling memories of their roles as "foot soldiers" in the movement inspired by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Riding into the unknown was the most socially rebellious act Ms. Huguley had undertaken. She was excited. The thought of seeing all the celebrities expected at the March on Washington overwhelmed her. She was anxious. There were fears the march would be unruly and the bus passengers were given instructions on how to behave if they were arrested or if violence broke out.

In between singing Freedom songs and spirituals, young Ms. Huguley, in black cotton pedal-pushers and white blouse, painted her nails.

"I was naive, not fully aware of what it all meant when I started out. I was trying to be cute, too."

On the outskirts of Washington, D.C., she got off the bus and flowed into a river of 250,000 people stepping toward the Mall.

Someone started singing "We Shall Overcome." Everyone started singing "We Shall Overcome."

In the embrace of the crowd, "all my fears evaporated."

Washington was hot and muggy and temperatures at the march soared into the 90s.

She heard the Red Cross volunteers cry for stretchers. People were fainting all around her.

In the heat of the day, Ms. Huguley got off the bus a young secretary who worked Downtown, proud of going further professionally than anyone in her family, but she got back on the bus a young woman determined to do more.

Mahalia Jackson. Lena Horne. Harry Belafonte. All the names she'd heard associated with the movement became real.

But as she stood at the Reflecting Pool, cooling herself with a handkerchief dipped in ice water, the world stopped when the Rev. King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

"It was one of the most spiritual moments of my life" she said.

"I had a different view of myself in the world. I saw myself as part of all those hopeful, determined, committed black people who were there and elsewhere that day. The way I felt being part of that family affected my life choices from that point forward."

The Rev. Donald McIlvane, a retired clergyman, now lives in Lawrenceville. He was a young priest who counseled at a workhouse in Blawnox. Raised in New York, he came to Pittsburgh at 10, studied at St. Vincent College.

He was part of a Catholic interracial group, pressing for healing in this city.

	Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette The Children of Praise mime group from the Mount Ararat Baptist Church performs at the Let Dr. King's Dream Shine memorial service yesterday at St. Paul Cathedral's Synod Hall in Oakland. Today's federal holiday honors the slain civil rights leader, who was born Jan. 15, 1929. Click photo for larger image.

Father McIlvane, armed with the theology of social gospel, believed the church should work to affirm the dignity of every person. Rosa Parks was right not to give up her seat, he said.

He had never met the Rev. King, but a decade after Ms. Parks' defiance, on March 7, 1965, he was unnerved by the grainy images on television that showed black students in their penny loafers and white women in their pearls being beaten and pelted on a road in Selma, Ala. The scene was so brutal the day is recorded as Bloody Sunday.

That same night, Father McIlvane gathered with the Catholic Interracial Council in Downtown Pittsburgh and volunteered to be one of two people sent South as two days later, on March 9, the Rev. King Jr., would led another "symbolic" march to the bridge.

Father McIlvane left Pittsburgh at 7 p.m. and his plane landed in Birmingham at midnight.

He was met at the airport by a black man, who took him to a Birmingham church.

The next morning, they took a bus to Selma and were given instructions on how to remain nonviolent: fall to your knees and try and protect the person next to you.

The Rev. King came and spoke to the group. "His personal words gave us more strength," he said.

When it was time to march, they lined up. Clergy people were sent to the front. Father McIlvane, in his priest collar, stood a few feet from the Rev. King.

All along the march route were federal marshals in uniforms carrying rifles.

"My participation was uneventful," said Father McIlvane. "But I couldn't help but be touched."

Oliver Montgomery, a father of five, was among the quarter of a million people at the march.

Mr. Montgomery was born in Youngstown, Ohio, a place that was black and white and separate.

Blacks lived on the South Side of town. They sat in a special section of the movie theater and there were bars and restaurants that they could not patronize.

The segregation deeply influenced Mr. Montgomery, as did the lives of two uncles. One was killed by Youngstown police and slight attention was given to the investigation. Another uncle was a Garveyite, a follower of Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican who espoused a back-to-Africa movement in the 1930s.

Mr. Montgomery graduated from Youngstown State University in 1956 intending to be a physician. Instead, he got involved in the union movement.

Mr. Montgomery's labor activities but him in contact with the Negro American Labor Council and its leader, A. Philip Randolph, who helped organize the Pullman porters and worked behind the scenes to organize the March on Washington.

Working with Mr. Randolph, Mr. Montgomery was actually able to meet Dr. King twice before the march. Both times at conferences with the Negro Labor Council.

"Meeting King was like shock and awe," he said. "He had such a magnitude about him."

Mr. Montgomery admitted he was not all nonviolent when he met Dr. King. An Army veteran, he had come out of a culture that said if you wanted something, you take it.

But he was impressed with the young minister's philosophy and his message that the struggle served a higher purpose.

So, he found himself on a bus to Washington in August 1963. The round trip cost $15 and included a box lunch.

There were scores of church people on the bus and they belted out freedom songs on the way. As the bus crossed the Maryland border, a car backfired and, fearing it was a gunshot, the bus driver stopped the bus.

"We had to force him to go forward," said Mr. Montgomery. "There was so much fear. Many people thought the march would turn into a mass riot."

Instead, he said, it was like a "Holy Day."

Back in Pittsburgh, Ms. Huguley married and had two daughters. In her quest to find answers to the race issue, she pored over the literature of James Baldwin. She went to college, graduating from Carlow in 1984 with a degree in business administration. She was 42 years old.

She joined the "Group with No Name," a dialogue collective where blacks and whites tried to answer the question: What do Negroes want?

No longer content to be the little African American who believed that speaking well and behaving well would change things, she started speaking out.

What did the Negro want?

"I think," she said to her group, "that we marched for the same opportunities to participate fully in American life."

Father McIlvane returned from his march and spent a few more years at the Blawnox workhouse and was later assigned to St. Richard Church in the Hill District, where he presided over an integrated church.

He supported local issues, such as the hiring of more black police officers and pushed for better public transportation to the Hill.

"I didn't come back [from Selma] to relax, but to continue working."

Oliver Montgomery returned to Youngstown and continued his activism.

He worked to desegregate bakeries, dairies, banks and swimming pools.

He came to Pittsburgh in 1969 and worked with National Coalition of Black Trade Unionists to bring pressure for minority hiring.

He served as president of the Penn Hills National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, pushing for jobs and economic development. When he retired, the fought for better health care choices for retired steel workers.