August 28, 1963

People have gathered on this day in August. They’ve come to Washington in the hundreds of thousands. Black Americans mostly, but white faces too. There they gather at the Lincoln Memorial, stretching out to the Washington Monument and beyond. I’m watching it on TV, this March For Jobs and Freedom they call it.
Celebrities are there, black and white. Joan Baez and Bob Dylan and Mahalia Jackson sing songs.
Speeches and prayers.
They are asking for freedom and equality, something I thought all Americans already had, at least that’s what they tell us in school.
The people are tired of the beatings and the hatred. They ask for the right to fair play and the right to earn a living wage. They ask for hope.
Speeches and prayers.
Thousands and thousands I see on the television, an ocean of people, black and white.
One speech is remembered more than all the others.
One man whose voice rises above all the others.
He calls out to America to live up to its promise.
He dreams a dream and asks us all to share in it.
He hopes for a world where there will be hope.
He cries out to put an end to hatred and suffering.
He asks us all to love one another and put aside our differences.
He dreams a dream.
I listen to Dr. King’s eloquent speech.
It will take a few more years before I hear it.
Before America hears it.