"Dynamic"

Martin Luther King Jr.

Born: January 15, 1929, Atlanta — Assassinated: April 4, 1968, Memphis

August 28, 1963 —50 years ago today he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and he spoke to America and the world — “I Have A Dream”

One hundred years later, the colored American lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the colored American is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land so we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition….

In a sense we have come to our Nation's Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our great republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed to the inalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given its colored people a bad check, a check that has come back marked "insufficient funds."…