Gay March, 1963 Rights Demonstration Share Similarities and 1 Key Difference : Equality: A number of parallels exist over the struggles to end discrimination. But this time, there is no deep fear of violence in the capital.

The landmark 1963 “March on Washington” is now a cherished part of American history--including the stirring “I have a dream” speech of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.--that struck a chord with millions of people who adopted a new view of the long struggle for racial equality.

Its legacy is so enduring, in fact, that Sunday’s gay march on Washington has drawn its inspiration and some of its themes from that event of three decades ago. Yet while some similarities exist between the causes of gay and civil rights, the mood in the city anticipating the event can scarcely be compared.

On the eve of that peaceful gathering in 1963, the nation’s white leadership had such a deep fear of violence arising from the massive assembly on the Washington Mall that 4,000 Army troops were placed on standby in the suburbs and 15,000 paratroopers in North Carolina were placed on alert.

Bars were closed and liquor sales were forbidden in the capital for the first time since the end of Prohibition.

President John F. Kennedy, who originally tried to discourage the march on the grounds that it would hurt the civil rights cause, refused to meet with its leaders until the event was over and there were no incidents.

“Authorities from all sectors guarded against the possibility that marauding Negroes might sack the capital like Moors or Visigoths incarnate,” wrote Taylor Branch in his recent history of the civil rights movement.

“Never before had white America accepted a pre-scheduled Negro political event for national attention.”

As it turned out, the original March on Washington was more like a festive Sunday school picnic than a Communist-inspired, riotous demonstration that conservative critics predicted it would be.

The three television networks at the time carried some of the proceedings live, including repeated choruses of the civil rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome.” The crowd, mostly black but interspersed with thousands of whites, was so orderly only four arrests were made all day--all of hostile whites interfering with the marchers.

Afterward, Kennedy issued a statement declaring that he was impressed with the “deep fervor and great dignity” that marked the occasion.

When it occurred on Aug. 28, 1963, it was the largest protest demonstration ever to take place in Washington, with crowd estimates ranging from 200,000 to 300,000 at various times during the day.

It set a pattern for many other marches that followed, starting with huge rallies against the Vietnam War, marches for and against abortion rights and demonstrations on behalf of the equal rights amendment.

The November, 1969, Vietnam Moratorium Day drew 600,000 marchers for what is the largest demonstration in Washington history.

Organized labor filled the Mall with several demonstrations during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George Bush and last year an estimated 500,000 people marched on behalf of abortion rights.

Some demonstrations, including the anti-Vietnam War protests, had a remarkable political effect. Others, such as the big turnouts for the ill-fated ERA, were forgotten as causes faded.

But all shared common traits--appeals to the public’s sense of morality and specific legislative goals--as well as a nonviolent commitment to the political process.

So it is with Sunday’s march by gays and lesbians. While the paranoia level is much lower today on the eve of their demonstration, many of the nation’s highest elected officials have found it convenient to be elsewhere, with both Republican and Democratic senators scheduling out-of-town retreats and the House in recess.

President Clinton, while declaring his strong opposition to discrimination against homosexuals, also will be away from Washington, literally keeping his distance from a march with unpredictable political fallout.

After the 1963 demonstration, King became increasingly influential in the civil rights movement as it campaigned for voting rights and laws granting equal access to public accommodations, housing and employment.

Congress--responding both to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who assumed the presidency after Kennedy was assassinated, and a new public mood more intolerant of racial segregation--enacted a series of laws in the 1960s to meet many of the demands voiced during that 1963 march.