I know there is a Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, honoring the civil rights leader on his birthday. But maybe that honor should have been set on this date instead. On August 28, 1963, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave the “I Have a Dream Speech” to a crowd of more than 200,000 people in Washington, D.C. (March organizers said 300,00.)

Here is the New York Times account of the march and speech:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0828.html#article

King’s most memorable speech was the culmination of the mass march on Washington, D.C., that drew a huge crowd of blacks and whites to the nation’s capital. In his biography of King, Bearing the Cross, author David J. Garrow calls the speech,

“The clarion call that conveyed the moral power of the movement’s cause to the millions who had watched the live national network coverage. Now, more than ever before…white America was confronted with the undeniable justice of blacks’ demands.”

The march was followed nearly one year later by passage of the Civil Rights Act, signed into law by Lyndon Johnson in June 1964, and the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Dr. King in October 1964.

Not everyone liked the march. Or the speech. Malcolm X responded to the historic occasion this way:

Not long ago, the black man in America was fed a dose of another form of the weakening, lulling, and deluding effects of so-called “integration.”
It was that “Farce on Washington,” I call it. . . . .
. . . Yes, I was there. I observed that circus. Who ever heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing “We Shall Overcome . . . Someday . . .” while tripping and swaying along arm-in-arm with the very people they were supposed to be angrily revolting against? Who ever heard of angry revolutionists swinging their bare feet together with their oppressor in lily-pad park pools, with gospels and guitars and “I Have A Dream” speeches?

What many people have also forgotten about the March was that it was about more than civil rights. Billed as the March for Jobs and Freedom, the March was also dedicated to economic justice. Martin Luther King increasingly voiced his opposition to the war in Vietnam as well.

In the current landscape of high unemployment and two foreign wars, it is difficult to imagine that Dr. King would be satisfied that his work was done. So the Dream goes on.

This is a link to the King Center Photo and video archive:
http://www.thekingcenter.org/PhotoVideo/Default.aspx

You can read more about King, the march and teh civil rights movement in Don’t Know Much About History