This Is the Day: The March on Washington, By Leonard Freed Getty £19.95

The Brooklyn-born documentary photographer Leonard Freed travelled widely and published books on, among many things, the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the Jewish community of Amsterdam, and the New York City Police Department. But he is best known for documenting the Civil Rights Movement, and the 1968 book Black and White in America.

This inspiring new collection – published just ahead of the 50th anniversary – documents the historic demonstration at which Martin Luther King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, and which led directly to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In wide-angle shots, Freed captures the scale of the march: 250,000 people unified in a great surge of humanity. But he also gives individual placard slogans due attention, and picks out individual faces in the crowd; hope in their eyes, and the words to the song "We Shall Overcome" clearly visible on their lips.