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Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream

By: Rebecca Sheir // January 17, 2011
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Julian Bond was the 23-year-old communications director for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee when he attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Doug Knutson
Julian Bond was the 23-year-old communications director for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee when he attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Monday is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday dedicated to the civil rights leader who was born Jan. 15, 1929, and was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

In August 1963, King was part of The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was organized by several civil rights organizations, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King helped start in Atlanta.

A highlight of the March was, of course, King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Some 250,000 people were there, on the National Mall, to hear it, and millions more watched on their televisions at home.

History books will tell you the speech was a critical moment for the country and the civil rights movement. But for the people gathered that day, the event was a life changer and there were many local residents who saw King's speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

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