On August 28, 1963, the Civil Rights Movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his seminal 'I Have a Dream' speech by the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which was rated by many as the most significant American political speech of the 20th century.
More than 200,000 people gathered on the National Mall in D.C. on that late August day for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in an effort to achieve social equality within a country still rife with injustice.
50 years later, the memory of King's universal message of brotherhood remains intact, as Washington D.C. prepared all day festivities commemorating that significant day in American history.
President Barack Obama is expected to deliver a speech at the Lincoln Memorial steps where tens of thousands of people will converge to listen at the same site where King spoke 50 years ago.
King's speech was a defining moment for the civil rights movement, in that, its goal was for people to adjust their thinking so that people "shall not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Bob Dylan, who performed 'When the Ships Come In" with Joan Baez said the things King expressed in the "I Have a Dream" speech still affect him "profoundly to this day."
The speech helped raise awareness for the need for justice in American politics. The attention garnered led to to important legislation, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to both pass in Congress.
While addressing the need for racial equality, the speech also addressed the needs for economic justice and jobs.
"For the marchers, an increase in the minimum wage was one way to address the high poverty rate among black Americans," writes Thomas J. Sugrue.
Dr. King "understood the importance of linking civil rights with human rights, with labor rights, with worker rights," said AFSCME President Lee Saunders added.
King's speech gave all socially conscious Americans the opportunity to march for universal brotherhood, rather than be mired in deep divisions like generations before it.
In 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War, however, a more realistic King reflected that the "dream" he spoke about "had turned into a nightmare," and the "old optimism" of the civil rights movement was "a little superficial" and needed to be tempered with "a solid realism." Just 11 months before his assassination, King spoke bluntly about what he called the "difficult days ahead," NBC News reported.
So while the optimism of King's speech remains palpable today, the realities of a more perfect union have yet been fulfilled.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 84 this year.
