Reilly was given the assignment by the Kennedy administration to attend the speech delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. on August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as part of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Roger Mudd reported that Reilly told him that he was positioned on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with a switch that would be used to cut off Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech "if the rhetoric got too inflammatory". A turntable with a 78-rpm recording of Mahalia Jackson's "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" was on standby, having been selected in advance by Reilly.