This effort was led by Dr. King, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. More than 200,000 people demonstrated in the March on Washington in August 1963, and the momentum from the civil rights movement helped to produce the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In Why We Can’t Wait, King observes:For too long the depth of racism in American life has been underestimated…. For King, those who sat in the pews but remained on the bench, refusing to positively endorse or support the civil rights movement, were a disappointment. To what extent will Americans today fall short when facing a test like that of Birmingham in 1963?