With the courage in their hearts, the strength in their backs, and the images of racial disparity etched into their eyes, 200,000 Americans gathered to participate in the March on Washington, and a thirty-five-year-old gave perhaps the most famous speech in the history of America’s ongoing battle for civil rights and racial justice. Before his speech at the March on Washington, this civil rights leader had been making strides for racial justice for as long as he could remember. The address not only cemented his eternal place in American history but also proved true that the first line of the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal,” could become a reality if advocated for peacefully.
This man's father inspired many of his beliefs about equality and racial injustice; Michael King was born in 1897 on December 19th and lived in Stockbridge, Georgia. Throughout his childhood, King saw racial disparity take place in many forms. King once recounted that “[The students in his old schoolhouse] had no books, no materials to write with, and no blackboard,”--a common sight in Black schoolhouses of the day. Nevertheless, he loved going to school. In 1918, King left his home to live with his sister Woodie in Atlanta, Georgia. While in Atlanta, he found himself soon living with the minister of the Ebenezer Baptist Church--the father of his future wife Alberta Williams. The couple soon had their first child--a dreamer named Michael King Jr.
In 1931, Alberta’s father died, leading Michael King Sr. to take over as Ebenezer Baptist Church’s pastor. In 1934, he found inspiration from Martin Luther, a Protestant Reformation leader, after traveling to Germany. This inspiration led him to change his name to Martin Luther King after the Protestant leader, as well as change his son’s name to Martin Luther King Jr (2).
To MLK Jr. and his siblings, Willie and Alfred, their parents, performed a daily balancing act due to their contrasting natures. Gentleness was often felt more from Alberta and a parental form discipline from Michael King Sr. However, the parents worked together to make sure their children felt loved and instilled in them a love for all God’s creations. Michael King Sr. taught the children that one is not meant to feel superior to others from an early age. This teaching contrasted with much of what they endured as Black children growing up during America’s reconstruction, Jim Crow, and civil rights movement periods as hatred and discrimination were aimed towards them simply for their skin color. As a result, Alberta and MLK Sr. did their very best to shield the children from the political environment, but it was hard to ignore with MLK Sr. often fighting against racial prejudice in various ways. His fighting and teachings about equality became two of the most significant factors in his son Michael’s early life (2).
MLK Jr. also felt many hardships in his early life. The sting of racial injustice was felt when he was only six years old and a fellow white classmate explained that his parents no longer permitted them to play together based on race. Another sting was felt when his aunt died of a heart attack when he was only twelve years old--something that led to him attempting suicide (3). While Michael King Sr. continued his work as a minister and civil rights activist, even with the religious ideals present in the home, MLK Jr. no longer felt as compelled as his father to hold religion to such high regard. This trait kept him from entering the ministry, a decision that disappointed his father (2).
A rather gifted student, MLK Jr. skipped both ninth and eleventh grade while attending high school at Booker T. Washington High School. In 1946, at only 15 years old, MLK Jr. began his college education at Morehouse College, which both his mother and father had previously attended. While pursuing a sociology degree, MLK Jr. was adored by his female classmates and well-liked by almost everybody (2). For the first two years of his college experience, however, MLK Jr. wasn’t the most motivated student. “I don’t think he took his studies very seriously, but seriously enough to get by,” a former classmate of MLK Jr. recalled. While that was true, MLK Jr. still took part in many extracurricular activities. Not only was he a member of the glee club, debate team, student council, and minister’s union, but MLK Jr. somehow found time to play on the Butler Street YMCA basketball team, an association that was part of the Morehouse chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). His interests and efforts varied greatly, but his dedication to his field of study remained and eventually led him to become the president of the sociology club (4).
As time went on, MLK Jr. became more and more interested in related political issues. In fact, MLK Jr. even wrote a powerful letter to The Atlanta Constitution in 1946, stating, “We want and are entitled to the basic rights and opportunities of American citizens: The right to learn a living at work for which we are fitted by training and ability; equal opportunities in education, health, recreation, and similar public services; the right to vote; equality before the law; some of the same courtesy and good manners that we ourselves bring to all human relations (4).” MLK Jr. soon found more opportunities to fight for civil rights as he got involved with an interracial student group in Atlanta that had monthly meetings involving discussions about social issues. He also found significant opportunities to work with white students from Emory University--opportunities that led him to understand that while it may have seemed like they were all against him, many white people would gladly join him in the fight for civil rights (4).
MLK Jr.’s talents and leadership continued to develop over the course of his education. In fact, he was soon elected as president of Crozer’s student body, which he was more than qualified for due to his elevated oratory skills. “The fact that with our student body largely Southern in constitution, [nearly all white],” a professor wrote in a recommendation letter for MLK Jr., “a colored man should be elected to and be popular [in] such a position is in itself no mean recommendation” (After his time at Crozer Theological Seminary, MLK Jr. attended Boston University. He met a talented music student named Coretta Scott, who attended the New England Conservatory School in Boston, and the two were married in 1953. Two years later, MLK Jr., after writing a dissertation titled “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman”, received his Ph.D. in systematic theology, providing him with the title is most frequently referred to by: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
During this time, Dr. King also became the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery AL…a church not far from the place a young sexual assault investigator named Rosa Parks had been arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man (7). The Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 was one of the earliest historic civil rights moments Dr. King contributed to. From December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, Montgomery’s public transit system deteriorated as Black Americans protested against the bus system by simply not riding the bus, decreasing its profits immensely (8). The boycott was designed by Jo Ann Robinson, leader of the Women’s Political Council, and augmented by the leaders of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), including Dr. King (8) (9). During a meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church, Dr. King proclaimed, “We are here because we are determined to get the situation corrected. This situation is not new. The problem has existed over endless years,” (10). He was quickly appointed president due to such tremendous oratory skills and honorable educational history; plus, the fact that he was new to Montgomery, Alabama, meant he had few to no real enemies in the city, making him the perfect choice for the role.
His time as president of MIA allowed him to rise to the level of a well-known Civil Rights leader. “We have no alternative to protest,” MLK Jr. stated, “For many years, we have shown an amazing patience. We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we liked the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice (11). With these words, the revolution for civil rights officially began a new chapter, and in this chapter, an aspiring, vigorous, brand new leader in the battle--25-year-old Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In December of 1956, Dr. King began enjoying rides on integrated buses Montgomery, Alabama, yet, he was nowhere near finished in his fight for racial justice.
Similar to civil rights icons like Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass about a century before him, Dr. King found ways to spread his racial justice and civil rights messages across the nation. King traveled nationwide, giving lectures and speeches, and was often joined by other well-known religious and civil rights leaders. During his travels, Dr. King both created the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which became for him a home away from home, and continued to find inspiration from historical leaders like Gandhi and average people alike, African citizens protesting for their rights being one example. “The liberation struggle in Africa has been the greatest single international influence on American Negro students,” he stated, “Frequently, I hear them say that if their African American brothers can break the bonds of colonialism, surely the American Negro can break Jim Crow,” (14). Thus, Dr. King learned and taught about civil rights and racial justice extensively as a young man traveling the nation.
At this point, Dr. King was a national celebrity, even appearing on the cover of TIME magazine in February of 1957. In May of 1957, Dr. King gave his first speech at the Lincoln Memorial, which was also his first national address. In his speech, “Give Us The Ballot”, Dr. King pushed for African Americans' right to vote (5). He also spoke out against the violent protests surrounding such rights taking place in America. He stated that the best way to end “the salient misdeeds” of those acting violently was for the government to allow those acting violently to “...fill [their] legislative halls with men of goodwill, (15)” essentially meaning that if the violence were to stop, politicians need to be elected that will fight against disenfranchisement and racial injustice.
Not long afterward on June 23, 1958, Dr. King and civil rights leaders A. Phillip Randolph and Roy Wilkins met with President Dwight D. Eisenhower to ensure that a comprehensive civil rights plan for America would be drafted and eventually executed (16). This was only six months after Eisenhower helped protect the Little Rock Nine, a group of nine Black students who peacefully protested practically still-segregated schools in Arkansas by attending one, by sending in federal troops. Unfortunately, Eisenhower committed to no real plan for addressing civil rights in America that fit the needs of the leaders and tense racial situation at hand--an action that could have cemented his presidency as far more revolutionary than it is remembered today (17).
In 1960, after the publishing of his first book in 1958 (a publication that led to him getting stabbed while at a book signing) and a meeting with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and followers of Gandhi in a month-long stay in India in 1959, Dr. King finally moved back to Montgomery, Alabama, to focus more time on the SCLC (18, 19,5). In October of that year, his national following grew even more as Dr. King was arrested for the first of many times in his life after participating in a peaceful sit-down protest with dozens of other Americans by his side in Rich’s department store in Atlanta (20).
Over time, Dr. King became not only an impactful national figure but also an influential personal mentor. In 1961, a group of Black college students sought to peacefully protest integrated buses still under the curse of racial disparity by simply riding on them. This group was known as the Freedom Riders, and John Lewis was a prominent member (22). Lewis was a budding civil rights activist at this time and Dr. King a very effective mentor. Lewis soon became a member of the SCLC and was “one of the most dedicated young men in our movement". After being arrested in July 1962 and assaulted in September of that same year, Dr. King continued pushing for peace--and was much admired by Lewis for it--even while many civil rights leaders were harassed and threatened, and it seemed like the world wanted nothing but violence (23).
In May of 1963, a conflict in Birmingham took place, drawing national attention and participation as well as landing King in jail. The movement in Birmingham was meant to be nothing more than a series of peaceful protests against segregation in the city, the campaign being seen as “a moral witness to give our community a chance to survive” per Fred Shuttlesworth, the founder of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (24). Dr. King continued spreading the word about peaceful protests, mass meetings (essentially just another term for a large group gathered together to discuss a common interest or concern) were held during the movement, boycotts of businesses in the area were established, and marches at City Hall were conducted peacefully (25). Day after day, the movement received more and more national attention, leading many new people to participate...so many, in fact, that demonstrations began happening inside nearby churches and libraries due to the city’s limited space.
Hundreds were arrested, including Dr. King on April 12--a conviction that led to him staying in solitary confinement for eight days. During this confinement, Dr. King’s requests to call his wife after their fourth child’s birth were denied until she brought her husband’s situation to the attention of the Kennedy Administration. After this, those keeping Dr. King locked up allowed him to use the phone, and he was eventually released on bail on April 20, 1963. While locked up, however, Dr. King wrote a letter titled “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in response to religious leaders’ criticisms of the Birmingham movement. In it, he quipped, “I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters?” (26). This lengthy letter was written on a humble piece of newspaper, but it soon had a large audience. Its message was passed around in Birmingham, and Congressman William Fitts Ryan even quoted its first half as he introduced it into testimony before Congress in order to push the need for Civil Rights advances (26).
Just over four months later, Dr. King’s most celebrated and well-known appearance at a movement took place. In 1941, the original March on Washington was planned by A. Phillip Randolph to protest against policies that were keeping Black Americans from holding World War II defense jobs. To postpone and hopefully cancel the event, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, after having a meeting with Randolph, promised to sign an executive order that would establish the Fair Employment Practice Committee, a committee designed to help fight racial disparities in the workplace by investigating charges of racial discrimination. However, Congress soon cut off funding for the FEPC. A similar organization, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), wasn't formed until twenty years later to investigate racial discrimination charges. In the meantime, Randolph had witnessed the rise of Dr. King from afar and figured he’d be the best person to help lead the way and bring a national spotlight to another March on Washington. The collaboration between the men took place on August 28, 1963, as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom commenced (27).
President John F. Kennedy was notified about the event about to take place and held a meeting in the oval office with Dr. King and other civil rights leaders: James Farmer, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, John Lewis, and Whitney Young--the Big Six. JFK had expressed concern for violence in Washington, D.C. Due to this, JFK proposed a shorter schedule for the March on Washington to only last one day due to this fear. Due to the meeting in the Oval Office, it was decided that the Big Six would also be joined by four white speakers. After more discussion, JFK was but was convinced that the March on Washington was a historic opportunity to get the messages of civil rights and racial justice across due to its peaceful nature. It was even proposed for JFK to speak at the march, a consideration soon shot down due to the chance that JFK would have stolen the spotlight from the famous yet not-as-known speakers (28).
With hardly a cloud in the sky and the highest temperature of the day being 80º F, it was a beautiful day in Washington, D.C., as demonstrators of all races marched down the national mall, hand in hand, bearing signs and other peaceful protest materials. They then joined together, standing on the Lincoln Memorial’s steps and sitting alongside the Washington Monument’s reflecting pool, some dipping their feet in the water (29). The march was supported by many civil rights organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Urban League, United Auto Workers, and the National Council of Churches of Christ in America, just to name a few. Those who organized the event had high hopes of 100,000 Americans being in attendance, a hope that was soon overshadowed by the 200,000+ that showed up (31). A collection of eleven speakers, including Medgar Evans, John Lewis, and Rabbi Uri Miller, spoke against America’s current political and governmental environment, drawing in the crowd of 200,000+. After nine speakers gave their remarks, it was time for Dr. King to speak (31).
I Have A Dream
“I am happy to join with you today,” Dr. King began, his voice smooth and proclamatory, sounding at points like he was singing, “in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.” (33) Taking inspiration from the Gettysburg Address and confidence from the 19-foot statue of the man who gave the address behind him, Dr. King continued with the words, “Five score and seven years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon of light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.” (33. 34).
To continue the speech, Dr. King spoke of one of America’s biggest issues to this day, the fact that while Black people have been in America just as long as white people, they often still “..live on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity…” this, as Dr. King explained, was a violation of the words that the founding fathers once wrote that all men are created equal and that they are endowed with the “unalienable rights” of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” (35). Dr. King also mentioned that the Negro people had been given “a bad check, a check which [was] marked “insufficient funds.” Dr. King was speaking nothing but truths with these remarks and was met with thundering applause.
Dr. King also explained that while the fight for racial justice may seem like a difficult war to wager, especially in a country where harsh forms of segregation were still present in America the decade before, that it was “...no time to engage in the luxury of colling off,” as that time in history would be the best time to do so. “1963 is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual… the whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.” Dr. King discussed America’s socioeconomic issues in which Black people were essentially forced to reside in low-income communities as there was no real way for them to find a way out. He also made an important point when he discussed the inclusion of both white speakers and white people in the audience by stating that in order to succeed in the fight for justice, they couldn’t walk alone, and their presence meant that the fight meant just as much to the white people in attendance as all the rest.
While Dr. King spoke powerful truths from the start and the entire speech is still known today, he decided to change course midway through. According to Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the director of the Hutchins Center for African American Research, and Alphonse Fletcher, University Professor at Harvard University, Dr. King “balked” at just how wordy some of the sentences were getting. Initially, one of the next sentences had read, “And so today, let us go back to our communities as members of the international association for the advancement of creative dissatisfaction” while another read, “Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama…South Carolina…Georgia…Louisiana…to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.” Consequently, as witnessed by his speechwriter Clarence Jones, Dr. King pushed his papers aside. Jones recalls leaning over to the person next to him and saying, “These people out there today don’t know it yet, but they’re about ready to go to church.” Then, the most famous words regarding Civil Rights in America were spoken (36, 37)---
“I have a dream…. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification"--one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.”
Dr. King concluded his speech by asking America to “Let freedom ring” from all across the nation, “From every mountainside… when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men, [and] white men, Jews, and Gentiles, Protestants, and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” (33).
After his powerful speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became a face known all across the nation, far more significant than ever before. More importantly, the fight for civil rights, prevalence of racial disparity, and prominence of the nation’s inequality were now being talked about on perhaps a larger stage and scale than ever before. Due to his reputation, however, Dr. King received some criticism from another famous civil rights leader: Malcolm X. X had a history of pushing for violence and believed that America should be separated by race instead of integrated. X and Dr. King only met one time--a meeting that lasted a handful of minutes but resulted in X telling Dr. King that he was now “throwing himself into the heart of the civil rights struggle” (38). These words acted as an olive branch, indicating that Dr. King was no longer seen as X’s opponent but his collaborator. X then went on to preach peaceful protest as a method of making change, drawing inspiration from Dr. King before his death (38).
President Lyndon B. Johnson soon signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 after JFK’s assassination only three months after the March on Washington, strengthening the push for desegregation and making employment opportunities for Black men and women more abundant (39). In the same year, Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in resisting racial prejudice and making such new legislation possible, accepting the prize with “an abiding faith in American and an audacious faith in the future of mankind (40).”
For the next four years, Dr. King continued advocating for civil rights by participating in and organizing marches and speaking all across the nation. On April 3, 1968, he spoke at the Mason Temple Church in Memphis, prophetically stating that he had “seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land (41).” Dr. King was only 39 years old the day he was shot while standing on the Lorraine Motel’s balcony (42). Because of this, he never had the opportunity to witness America’s evolution through important milestones like the Civil Rights Act of 1991, an act signed by President George H.W. Bush to give Black Americans a stronger voice in courtrooms (43). He also never witnessed Black and minority Americans’ gains in governmental offices from Congress positions to executive positions like both Presidential and Vice President. However, America remembers Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as an influential contributor to civil rights and the improvement of Black Americans, and they will still remember him for centuries to come (a).
Long live Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.!
REFLECTION
To be sincere, I don’t know how I can add more than is already written. While much of it consists of quotes from Dr. King himself, this essay is the endgame of everything I have written up to this point. While writing about Rosa Parks, the Little Rock Nine, and Malcolm X, I kept seeing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s name pop up in my research.
It’s hard for me to imagine being downright hated and discriminated against in the fashions present in these icons’ times just due to having a different skin color. While I did grow up in a white rural community where a majority of citizens were heavily conservative, views that could often lead to discriminatory views, and I am of a mixed background, I was lucky enough to grow up looking remarkably similar to nearly all of my peers. After reading the Rosa Parks essay, a friend of mine told me that it was a bit crazy for her to see Dr. King’s name show up during the explanation of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and, honestly, it is both strange and amazing to see these civil rights icons--Parks, X, the Little Rock Nine, and even Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman all coming together in terms of traveling across the nation to deliver speeches and organize demonstrations to spread their messages of equality during their respective eras. But, think about this--if you were standing in the middle of a circular room, statues of all of the icons listed in this text up against the walls, you’d be able to point out each one and give at least a quick history lesson about them. They stand as individuals, yet they stand close together as a community of activists, dreamers, and doers in their chapters of American history.
I had never read the “I Have A Dream” speech in its entirety before researching this essay, and I must admit that while reading it, I felt like I was transported to that moment in history. Dr. King’s words, while seen as complex to him literally mid-speech, can be understood by people of all ages. Better yet, his words in the I have a dream section were completely improvised. He had gripped the soul of the nation by that point, and his legacy would have lived on if he had continued on with his prepared speech, yet he showed true transparency and united everybody in attendance by proclaiming that they wanted the same thing--freedom, equality, and community.
This is why his inclusion of the lines “[it] is evidenced by their presence here today, [that the white people in the audience] have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom” are so important. Black Lives Matter and other significant movements are not about hoisting up Black Americans to levels higher than other Americans. They are genuinely about just making things equal. Furthermore, while they are pushing for policies to improve the lives of Black and minority people, the movement is intended to produce equality and be something everyone can and should participate in.
In Dr. King’s words, “We cannot walk alone. We cannot turn back.” These words need to ring out if systemic racism is to end. Everybody can support such a movement simply by making sure they are educating themselves and others and putting the best foot forward when doing so.
As an American spiritual once said,
“Fly and never tire, fly and never tire.
There’s a great camp meeting in the Promised Land (44).”
Footnotes
a. Here’s something that’s also sad to think about--he never got to see media like the musical Hamilton. I’ve had Hamilton on during the entire time I’ve been revising this before Grace gets to it, I’m actually right at the last song, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story”, believe it or not, and I’ve been thinking the whole time about what he would think.
Sources & Links
King, Martin Luther, St. || Stanford | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
Martin Luther King, Jr. American religious leader and civil rights activist | Britannica
Morehouse College || Stanford | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
Mays, Benjamin Elijah || Stanford | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
The Woman On The Bus - The Story of Rosa Parks || The Vinny Demme Portfolio
(1955) Martin Luther King Jr., “The Montgomery Bus Boycott” || Black Past
Preaching Her Truth: How Isabella Became Sojourner || The Vinny Demme Portfolio
Frederick Douglass: Bookworm, Author, & Orator || The Vinny Demme Portfolio
Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Give Us the Ballot! || League of Women Voters
Eisenhower, Dwight Favid || Stanford | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
How an Assassination Attempt Affirmed MLK’s Faith in Nonviolence | History.com
Nehru, Jawaharlal || Stanford | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
Lewis, John || Stanford | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
Lewis, John || Stanford | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
Birmingham Campaign || Stanford | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
Kennedy White House had jitters ahead of 1963 March on Washington || CNN
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom || National Park Service
Official Program for the March on Washington (1963) || Our Documents
I Have A Dream: Full Text March On Washington Speech || NAACP
Declaration of Independence: A Transcription || National Archives
Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X Only Met Once || Biography
LBJ Champions the Civil Rights Act of 1964 || National Archives
Martin Luther King Jr. - Acceptance Speech || The Nobel Prize
Civil Rights Act of 1991 (Original Text) || U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
A Promised Land || Barack Obama
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