Reuters – An address by President Barack Obama and nationwide bell-ringing will cap celebrations on Wednesday marking the 50th anniversary of civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s landmark “I have a dream” speech.
Obama will speak during the “Let Freedom Ring and Call to Action” commemoration on the steps of Washington’s Lincoln Memorial, the site of King’s address on August 28, 1963, the White House said.
Other speakers include former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. The ceremony will follow an interfaith service at Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, organizers said.
The speech by Obama, the first black U.S. president, will come as almost half of Americans say much more needs to be done before the color-blind society that King envisioned is realized.
Live streaming on C-Span of Commemoration of March on Washington: here:
Whew!
Oh, what a day!!
I thought it was interesting that Rep John Lewis referenced the Otis Redding version of “A Change is Gonna Come.”
Beautiful! Beautiful music to my ears! Loves it!
It really is beautiful. Otis Redding didn’t have Sam Cooke’s crystalline pipes or his range, but Sam’s story was his story too, and his interpretation of “Change” is almost as good as the original (IMO).
So soulful.
Yes. The experience is captured beautifully by Otis Redding.
I’m so loving it.
SWEET! Thanks for sharing this, Liza. :-)))
YVW, Ametia.
See what you did, Liza? Now I can’t stop playing the song. God, I love it. It touches me deep in my heart. Yes!!!!!!!!
Ha ha, me too. I’ve played it about five times since John Lewis gave his speech.
I got the fever! lol
Betty Waller Gray of Richmond, Va., who attended previous March’s on Washington, listen to the speakers during the March on Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. President Barack Obama will speak later Wednesday. (AP Photo/ Susan Walsh)
I just want to hug this wonderful lady!
Me too. The EYES have it, all the struggles, pain, joys, sorrows, and love. It’s all in there.
Yes, it is, Ametia.
I remember my mom going to 1983 March from Minneapolis. They wore yellow T-shirts and chanted “Eat cheese Ronald Reagan eat cheese.” Going in on him wanting to cut WIC. Ted Kennedy had came here right before then. Wow looking at her brought all that back.
Message for the racists out there……..”Hit the road Jack!”
and
AND DON’TCHA COME BACK NO MORE, NO MORE, NO MORE,
NO MORE!
That was a really good speech by PBO today. I thought it was interesting how he set expectations about any comparisons to MLK Jr. , “He belongs to the ages.” There can be no comparison. I also liked how he called out the haters and obstructionists inbetween paying homage to the Civil Rights Movement and reminding people of the second goal of the March – middle class job opportunities for all Americans. Much like Dr. King, he spoke the truth today. Dr. King would have been proud.
Co-sign, Liza. PBO knows and understands the reason why he stands before America today. As President of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA, He stands on the shoulders of Dr. King and all those who MARCHED for Civil Rights.
So true. And the nation is damn lucky that someone of PBO’s intelligence won the presidency after the two devastating Bush Administrations.
We need a photo of that precious little angel girl dressed in blue
Isn’t she darling?!
I saw her. Precious! I think she is MLK’s granddaughter.
We’re marching..
You bet we are!
Marching with strong goals!
MARCHING….
The thread of videos of speeches and performances have been published. I’ll add PBO’s speech when available.
You are amazing! How did you do that so well during the speeches?!
Get ready to MARCH. We are not going back!
Hi Vette, DAPS! There is NO going back.
We will march together in force and those racist had better get out of the way if they don’t want to be trampled!
Here it comes!
Obama:
The courage to change.
We are masters of our fate.
Promises will only be kept when we work together.
I see it when…….
……..
It’s there when….
He is telling where courage comes from and what we can DO WITH THAT COURAGE
THIS will be call the “With that courage speech”
I’m so emotional… Tears keep falling..
Me too……but the level of your tears have to be more profound because of your experience and that of your family!
“The fierce urgency of NOW REMAINS”
“The SAME flame remains”
Listing the people who are marching………….
PBO: “He gave mighty voice to the quiet hopes of millions,” Obama said on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
I hope I can read a copy of his speech by this evening.
This is so good!
WaPo and a few of the other newspapers online will post the transcript also Whitehouse.gov
Great! Thanks, Ametia!
President Obama: “Because they marched, a Civil Rights law was passed. Because they marched, a Voting Rights law was signed.”
Keep telling the TRUTH, Mr. President.
Because the politics of today is trying to take us back down that road. *LOOKING@GOP&SCOTUS*
I can’t stop crying…
[President Obama: Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.]
Thinking about my sweet little parents & all they endured during the cruel Jim Crow days but always hoping for a better day and never once taught us to hate. This history making day meant so much to them.
**tears**
*reaching out with a caring hug for you and a spiritual one for your parents*
*hugs you right back*
*Virtual HUGS* So grateful my dad got to vote for Presient Obama before he died.
How deeply moving and wonderful for you and your dad, Ametia!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are the group! Tearful ladies of the afternoon! :)
I REJOICE in the power and strength of the multitudes out there who have good hearts and the strength and determination to make change happen and to make…….. the racists and their efforts to turn the clock back……..reduced to nothingness and impotence!
Good for nothing impotence!
You do have a way with words, SG2, in your analysis :)
:)
President Obama: “In the face of hatred, they prayed for their tormentors. In the face of violence, they stood up and sat in.”
NOW Obama is firing up with what will be memorable words.
POTUS!!!!!
Sing it Sista, Heather! Yeah Yeah
Hat tip to ay2z for this other song my Heather:
Thank you so much.
She is absolutely beautiful!
What a great performance!
LET FREEDOM RING! The bell is ringing
Go Bernice! Let Freedom Ring!!!!!!!!
Everywhere!!!!
**tears**
JESUS IS LOVE!
Now that was a great speech.
The whiney, racist, knuckle-dragging lefties and righties, and teh house negrores have been served notice.
We aren’t going back.
No, Martin Luther King Jr. Was Not A Republican — But Here’s What He Had To Say About Them
excerpt–
The Republican Party geared its appeal and program to racism, reaction, and extremism. All people of goodwill viewed with alarm and concern the frenzied wedding at the Cow Palace of the KKK with the radical right. The “best man” at this ceremony was a senator whose voting record, philosophy, and program were anathema to all the hard-won achievements of the past decade.
And NOTHING’S changed. They’re just more COVERT & BRAZEN today.
Rev Bernice King: NO TO CHAOS, YES TO COMMUNITY!
Wouldn’t it be great for a book to be published that reproduces the texts of all of the speeches from today and last Saturday?
It should include a check list for specific things all of us can do to bring about change and to fight against the movement to turn the clock back.
I just remember my soft served, swirled ice cream cup in the freezer…..I have extra spoons for any of you who want to share it.
Yahtc,
My parents use to make homemade ice cream. It was always soft and very sweet.
:)
Love Christine King Farris’s HAT!
She and Aretha know their hats!!!
For those who do not know, Christine King Farris is MLK’s sister.
Yes; “You can slay the dreamer, but not Martin’s DREAM.”
Yes we must push through those stubborn gates TOGETHER!
GREAT speech by Clinton!
Bill Clinton, your presidency saw more BLACK men INCARCERATED then any other, and thus continued and strengthen the Prison industrial complex.
I was realizing that and wished he had recognized and apologized for that.
Great speech by Jimmy Carter!!!!!!
It is focusing the spotlight on the crucial issues!!!
Gotta see this one again!!
Rep. John Lewis gave a damn good speech! Mentioned Trayvon Martin.
The old scars of racism have been torn open for John Lewis and other POC. He spoke TRUTH to POWER.
Indeed he did!
Let all of the hateful rightwing heads explode. Who cares?
Congressman John Lewis: In 1961, the year President Obama was born, blacks & whites couldn’t sit together on buses.
Congressman John Lewis called Trayvon Martin case an INJUSTICE!
Yes! I witnessed that!
Zimmerman verdict was a despicable INJUSTICE.
Rep JL talked about the Zimmerman verdict last night in his interview with Gwen Ifill. He compared it to the moment when he heard about the Emmett Till verdict, he was 15 years old and working in a cotton field in Alabama. He is really sad about this and also about what SCOTUS did to the VRA. I’m glad he mentioned Trayvon in his speech. I hope that POTUS does too. Let the rightwing heads explode, who cares?
I’m waiting on Potus to mention it…Maybe we’ll see some action/movement from the DOJ. Ben Jealous probably have delivered those 1.7 million signatures to the Department of Justice.
The crowd is much more diverse than it was on Saturday!
John Lewis speaking.
You list the scars that are being made today…..Yes!…….Tell it John Lewis!!!
Rep John Lewis. Bring, Mr. Lewis!
The Obama’s are in the hizzy!
Videos to come. Working on them right now.
Thanks!!
POTUS has ARRIVED!!!!!!!!!!
Yes!!!
OPRAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OPRAH!!!!!!
The singing MOVES me!!!!!
Is that Maya in the yellow dressing sitting in chair?
Guess not.
Beautiful!
Winnan brothers singing – FABULOUS!
50 Years After the March, New Enemies of Racial Equality Have Mobilized Against the Dream
http://thedailybanter.com/2013/08/50-years-after-the-march-new-enemies-of-racial-equality-have-mobilized-against-the-dream/
Remarkably, however, there’s a malicious conspiracy underway to roll back the mandates of those advancements, 50 years later.
A new generation of Jim Crow-inspired legislation includes measures with cute nicknames like “Papers Please,” a descendant of vagrancy laws requiring that anyone who’s stopped by police in Arizona produce documentation verifying citizenship. Another racially-charged law in New York City of all places, far from the backwoods and bayous of the South, is called “stop-and-frisk,” allowing police officers to profile and pat-down anyone who they judge to have possible criminal intent. Guess who’s stopped-and-frisked most often.
The great irony with stop-and-frisk is that the real criminals are the tailored, preening white guys in lower Manhattan who are actively thinking of new ways to circumvent the Securities & Exchange Commission in the name of fueling the wealth of other tailored, preening white guys who are actively polluting our environment; who are selling us poisonous food; and who are marketing in slave labor both overseas and in the Midwest, exploiting undocumented workers smuggled across the border from Mexico. Indeed, the people who really ought to be stopped-and-frisked, aren’t.
Meanwhile, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that Voter ID laws, like the legislation that was recently passed in North Carolina, are designed to do one thing and one thing alone: disenfranchise minorities in order to improve the electoral odds of the monochromatic Republican Party. How do we know this? They’ve confessed to it. Repeatedly. Thanks to conservatives on the Supreme Court, a wave of new Voter ID bills were rushed into law following the atrocious Holder v Shelby County decision.
Yes; TRUTH here… and we will NOT be counting jelly beans, and making absurd and asinine guesses about soap and such silliness!
WE WILL NOT BE GOING BACK, MOFOS
TheObamaDiary.com @TheObamaDiary
Aug 28, 1955 – Emmett Till murdered
Aug 28, 1963 – Dr King’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech
Aug 28, 2008 – Barack Obama nominated by Dem. Party
8:33 AM – 28 Aug 2013
Wow!
SUPER wow!
Dr. King’s DREAM is real. It is our DREAM. And we will never allow anyone turn it BACK into a NIGHTMARE.
Forest Whitaker speaking now!
Oh! Oh!
Shirley Caesar singing at the March on Washington 50th Anniversary!
Sang, Shirley! Sang!
http://youtu.be/vZw6iT_gcL8
Rev. Joseph Lowery speaking now.
Edith Lee Payne, of Detroit, was a young marcher participating in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. The march coincided with her 12th birthday. (Rowland Scherman, Getty Images /August 28, 1963)
President Obama will speak at 2:45 p.m. est on the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” Speech.
John Lewis at March on Washington: “We want to be free now”
Tracy & Sybrina singing “BLOWIN IN THE WIND.
Sybrina now standing with Peter and Paul of Peter, Paul and Mary.
and Tracy.
They are singing along with Peter and Paul!!!
*tears!*
Johnny Dupree speaking now.
I hope we can post this great speech later.
Let Freedom Ring!
Thanks for this.
EVERY SINGLE BIT OF THIS:
America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice–
CASH THE CHECK!
Cash the MOFO check!
Andrew Young speaking now. He began by singing “Woke Up This Morning with My Mind Stayed on Freedom”!
He’s ending now by singing “I’ve Got a Feeling that Everything is Going to Be Alright”
He ended by saying “Pray On, Stay On and Firght On”
Celebrating 50 Years Since The March on Washington
To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington, August 28th, 1963, Democrats share their memories of the march, as well as discuss the lasting impact of the civil rights movement.
To hear more from John Lewis on the March On Washington, visit http://www.smithsonianmag.com/video/J…
“Be True To What You Said On Paper”
The Right to Protest for Right
There was absolutely NOTHING dangerous about this NEGRO. The dangerous folks were the very same racist people labeling Dr. King as a” dangeros negro.”
Live steaming on C-Span of Commemoration of March on Washington:
http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN/
Morning, everyone! Thanks for this, Yahtc! I’ll add it to the post.
Andrew Young sangin’ “I got a feeling, everything’s going to be ALRIGHT.”
Dr Martin Luther King Jr, August 28, 1963:
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro 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 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 the unalienable 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 the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
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.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Thanks for posting Dr. Martin Luther King’s full speech, Rikyrah!
We must hear those details. They must not be buried by only focusing on the “I have a dream” part of his speech.
Let Freedom Ring!!!!!!!!!!!
At 3:00 today bells will ring at 300 locations across the United States to mark Martin Luther King’s speech!
Thanks for posting the text, Rikyrah.
This speech is a masterpiece, the language is so beautiful that it reads like poetry. MLK’s delivery of this speech has never been surpassed or even equaled and it is unlikely that it will be. Truly a national treasure. It is no wonder that all of those people who came to DC fifty years ago left with such hope, because what reasonable person could hear this speech and deny all of this truth? What reasonable person would not want America to fully embrace justice for all? MLK understood the power of words, more so than anyone who has lived in our times.
A masterpiece indeed! So incredibly powerful! Everytime I hear his voice I get goosebumps!
Thanks. Now I can read it as I watch it later. Context.
Black Canseco @BlackCanseco5h
So-called allies told Blackfolk to put Intersectionality over Independence, so we did. Now we have neither. #MLKDream50 #MLK50
UH HUH
Martin Luther King Jr.’s Amazing 1964 Interview With Robert Penn Warren
Six months after the March on Washington, he discussed the obligations of “the Negro” in an integrated society, non-violence, and having eggs thrown at him in Harlem.
Garance Franke-RutaAug 26 2013, 12:15 PM ET
On March 18, 1964, Pulitzer Prize winning poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren sat down with Martin Luther King Jr. in King’s offices in Atlanta to interview him for what would become Warren’s 1965 book Who Speaks for the Negro? Warren, a Kentuckian who in the 1940s had been one of America’s first poet laureates (then called the consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress), was going around the country interviewing civil-rights leaders and grassroots organizers, such as King, Malcolm X, Bayard Rustin, and Ralph Ellison. The tapes remained in Warren’s archives, and were scattered between universities for decades until a young scholar in 2006 sparked a conversation that led, six years later, to a unified collection of the tapes and other research materials for the Warren book at one university, in a digitized format that made them easily accessible online for the first time.
Housed online at the Robert Penn Warren Civil Rights Oral History Project, which is part of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries, and at the Vanderbilt University Library, the interview between Warren and King was publicly aired for the first time on C-SPAN Radio in October 2006, and was re-aired by C-SPAN Radio over the weekend in advance of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington
It’s really a treasure. “I’ve never heard him just talk. You only hear (recordings of) King preach or give a speech,” Mona Frederick, executive director of the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities at Vanderbilt, told The Tennessean when the digital archive finally went online in September 2012. “It’s pre-YouTube and social media
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/martin-luther-king-jrs-amazing-1964-interview-with-robert-penn-warren/279014/
Dr. King Said It: I’m Black and I’m Proud!
http://youtu.be/Suw_CQ3zfTY
Yes indeed! And being proud of being black means claiming our status of being AMERICANS. And this means claiming what is JUSTLY & RIGHTFULLY ours under the LAWS & CREEDS of AMERICA.
I’M BLACK, BEAUTIFUL & PROUD! Now
Broadcast Nets To Cover Obama’s MLK Speech On March Anniversary; CNN, MSNBC To Telecast ‘I Have A Dream’
http://www.deadline.com/2013/08/broadcast-networks-to-cover-obamas-speech-at-lincoln-memorial-cnn-may-telecast-i-have-a-dream-speech/
ABC, CBS and NBC said this afternoon they will interrupt regularly scheduled programming tomorrow afternoon to join the cable news networks in carrying live President Obama’s remarks on the 50th anniversary of the historic March on
Washington, at which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. At approximately 2:40 PM ET, NBC anchor Lester Holt and White House Correspondent Chuck Todd will anchor that network’s coverage of Obama’s remarks. At CBS, evening news anchor/managing editor Scott Pelley will lead that network’s coverage of Obama’s speech from the Lincoln Memorial. When Obama speaks from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, ABC News’ Chief National correspondent Byron Pitts will lead that network’s coverage.
CNN and MSNBC say they will telecast King’s 1963 speech in its entirety. CNN says it will run some time after noon ET; MSNBC says it will run the speech at approximately 4 PM ET, after President Obama’s remarks. MSNBC will repeat the speech, with limited commercial interruptions, during a Chris Hayes-hosted special, All In at 8 PM ET live from Washington.
Ceremony to mark 50th anniversary of March on Washington Wednesday
Obama believes his sucess in attaining the nation’s highest political office is a testament to the dedication of King and others
http://www.click2houston.com/news/ceremony-to-mark-50th-anniversary-of-march-on-washington-wednesday/-/1735978/21673940/-/y4my8u/-/index.html
President Barack Obama was 2-years-old and growing up in Hawaii when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Fifty years later, the nation’s first black president will stand as the most high-profile example of the racial progress King espoused, delivering remarks Wednesday at a nationwide commemoration of the 1963 demonstration for jobs, economic justice and racial equality.
Obama believes his success in attaining the nation’s highest political office is a testament to the dedication of King and others, and that he would not be the current Oval Office occupant if it were not for their willingness to persevere through repeated imprisonments, bomb threats and blasts from billy clubs and fire hoses.
“When you are talking about Dr. King’s speech at the March on Washington, you’re talking about one of the maybe five greatest speeches in American history,” Obama said in a radio interview Tuesday. “And the words that he spoke at that particular moment, with so much at stake, and the way in which he captured the hopes and dreams of an entire generation I think is unmatched.”
In tribute, Obama keeps a bust of King in the Oval Office and a framed copy of the program from that historic day when 250,000 people gathered for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
How to navigate Wednesday’s March on Washington anniversary events
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dr-gridlock/wp/2013/08/27/road-closures-metro-tips-for-march-on-washington-anniversary-wednesday/
Large crowds are expected to descend on the nation’s capital Wednesday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.
Here’s what you need to know to navigate the crowds, the traffic and Metro:
SITE CLOSURES
The Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the World War II Memorial and D.C. War Memorial will be closed 4 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday.
Those attending the ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial must enter the Mall from 17th Street, just north of the World War II Memorial.
ROAD CLOSURES
Beginning at 3:15 a.m. on Wednesday, the following roads and pedestrian walkways will be closed until approximately 6:30 p.m.: