When did Martin Luther King Jr. give his famous “I Have a Dream” speech?
Civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) gave his “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington. The march drew more than a quarter million people lobbying for congressional passage of a civil rights bill. They gathered around the Lincoln Memorial to hear the speakers. When King spoke, he effectively defined the Civil Rights movement and the struggle for justice with these famous lines: “I have a dream that one day 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’.” Congress (the law-making body of the United States) passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964. This was the most comprehensive piece of American civil rights legislation since the Reconstruction (1856–77; a twelve-year period…
