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Fifty years ago this week, when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators came from across the country to take part in the 1963 March on Washington, the city was not yet the cosmopolitan capital that it arguably is today.

But it was a mecca for African-Americans, says historian Marya McQuirter.

"Washington was definitely a different city 50 years ago," she says, "for a number of reasons. By 1957, it had become the largest majority black city in the country."

That was, in part, because of "white flight," she says, but also because D.C. was "an attractive place for African-Americans migrating from the South."

As well as from the North.

Ella Kelly came to Washington from New York's Harlem, first to study at Howard University, then to live.

"It was Southern, and you learned that very quickly," she says. "I don't mean that in a negative way. There were things such as you'd stand at the corner, waiting to take the bus, and little ladies would say, 'Good morning.' That kind of thing."

Kelly, a retired public school teacher and government worker, remembers Washington then as a beautiful city. But she remembers ugliness, too, like the time she and her husband looked at an apartment for rent.

"The manager of the building was an African-American woman," Kelly says. "There was a sign outside that said, 'Apartment available.' We knocked on the front door. She came to the door, and she said, 'We don't rent to colored.' She was a person of color. My husband and I looked at each other ... 'OK, whatever,' and we left."

That kind of segregation was not uncommon in Washington.

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What The March On Washington Called For, And What We Got

Based on what we know now, President Obama is as likely to be impeached as he is to be a lottery pick in next year's NBA draft.

Yet it's equally unlikely that calls for his impeachment will end anytime soon. Adding fuel to the fire recently was Obama's old friend from his Senate days, Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who suggested Obama had come "perilously close" to meeting the impeachment threshold.

Freshman Rep. Kent Bentivolio, R-Mich., fanned the flames by saying an Obama impeachment would be a "dream come true," though the lawyers he consulted on the matter told him to keep dreaming.

The congressional summer recess also found Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, telling his constituents that Republicans "could probably get the votes" in the House to impeach Obama.

Of course, as Garrett Epps, a University of Baltimore Law School professor, points out in "American Epic: Reading the U.S. Constitution," nothing can stop a House bent on impeachment from seizing on any reason to do so "whether for illicit sex, jaywalking, or drinking Pinot Noir with fish."

It's kind of like the old saw about the ease with which a prosecutor can persuade a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. But getting the House to vote for impeachment, however, is a far simpler task than getting a conviction in the Senate.

Still, so long as the U.S. has political parties, there will be people calling for the impeachment of the president of an opposing party. Or even threatening impeachment against presidents of their own party.

Only three of 44 presidents have had to endure actual impeachment proceedings. House charges against John Tyler were dropped; Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were acquitted.

But name a modern non-impeached president and someone probably imagined him being impeached. A Republican congressman from Michigan wanted Franklin Roosevelt impeached, and he wasn't alone.

Perhaps more fancifully, the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote a poem titled "Tentative Description of a Dinner Given To Promote the Impeachment of President Eisenhower." Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, especially, all inspired more or less serious calls for their impeachment.

Many of those calls came from one lawmaker, the late Democratic Rep. Henry Gonzalez. The Texas congressman went after so many Republican presidents that journalist John Nichols, in his book The Genius of Impeachment, says he was jokingly referred to by his House colleagues as "Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Impeachment)."

None of Gonzalez's targets, of course, were impeached. And, again, Obama isn't likely to be either.

No less a Republican leader than Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, no friend to Obama, is trying to stamp out the impeachment sparks.

On NBC's Meet the Press recently, he said:

"Look, I reject that kind of talk. The reality is I didn't like it when the left spent eight years trying to delegitimize President Bush, calling to question his election.

"I don't think we should be doing that to President Obama. The reality is, one of the great things about this country is we do have a peaceful transfer of power. I disagree with this president's policy. And stop talking about impeachment."

Obama White House aides couldn't agree more. Responding to an online petition with more than 49,000 signers calling for the president's impeachment, someone in the White House operation wrote a response headlined: "The Short Answer Is No, But Keep Reading."

After refuting several of the charges made by the president's opponents, the post said:

"So the short answer is that we won't be calling for the President's impeachment — and given the fact that you made your appeal to the White House itself, we doubt you were holding your breath waiting for our support.

"Here's the important thing, though. Even though this request isn't going to happen, we want you to walk away from this process with knowledge that we're doing our best to listen — even to our harshest critics."

Fifty years ago Wednesday, John Lewis was the youngest speaker to address the estimated quarter-million people at the March on Washington.

"Those who have said be patient and wait — we must say that we cannot be patient," the 23-year-old chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) said that day. "We do not want our freedom gradually. But we want to be free now."

Aug. 28, 1963, also was the day the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I Have A Dream" speech, and few are as thoughtful about the significance of the day as Lewis, now a Democratic congressman from Georgia and civil rights icon.

That summer, the nation had seen black children attacked by dogs and fire hoses in Birmingham, Ala., as well as the murder of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers.

In his 1963 speech, Lewis thundered: "Where is the political party that would make it unnecessary to march on Washington?"

Lonnie Bunch, director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, says Lewis originally planned to give a much angrier speech.

The most fluid mayor's race that New York City has seen in decades may finally be firming up. The city's public advocate, Bill de Blasio, has surged to a commanding lead in the latest poll of Democratic primary voters.

De Blasio's timing couldn't be better. In less than two weeks, those voters will begin choosing the successor to independent Michael Bloomberg.

All year, the big question in New York City politics has been which Democrat could cobble together enough votes to win the party's nomination for mayor.

"Where the bouncing ball will come to rest, God only knows," says Maurice Carroll, who directs the Quinnipiac Poll.

The poll has had four front-runners in as many months, including early favorite Christine Quinn, the speaker of the City Council, and former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner. In the latest poll, released Wednesday, De Blasio holds a commanding 15-point lead over his nearest rival.

De Blasio has positioned himself as the anti-Bloomberg: an old-school liberal who's not afraid to talk about inequality, as he did at a recent debate.

"In New York City right now, we are living a tale of two cities," he said. "Almost half our people — 46 percent — at or near the poverty level and our middle class is disappearing. We need a real break from the Bloomberg years."

A month ago, de Blasio was a distant fourth in the crowded Democratic field. His rise in the polls began with the implosion of Weiner's campaign following new sexting allegations against the former congressman last month.

But that's not the only explanation. De Blasio's message of raising taxes on the rich to pay for early childhood education seems to be connecting with liberal primary voters.

And he's been helped by a much-discussed campaign ad starring his multiracial son, Dante, who wears his hair in a 1970s-style Afro. The 15-year-old tells voters that his father is "the only one who will end a stop-and-frisk era that unfairly targets people of color."