On August 23, 1963, five days before the March on Washington in which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech, presidential pollster Louis Harris called the president about a poll he was going to conduct. "We are going to get a full read on the whites, on this whole Negro thing, that's something people want very strongly," Harris said. "I have the impression this thing's cooled off a bit, but I may be wrong," Kennedy replied. "Well, I think we will find that out," Harris told him. "We're also going to do a before and after on this March on Washington thing. A lot of people say.... But unless something will take place, I'm not sure it will have that much effect one way or the other."
