Fifty one years ago this month, on August 28, 1963 to be exact, the world was gifted what has come to be universally acknowledged as perhaps the most riveting, most transformational, most inspirational speeches in recorded history. Atop the steps of the symbolic Lincoln Memorial, before a mass of over 250,000 civil rights activists, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his epochal "I Have a Dream" rendition, calling for an end to racism in the United States.
Ranked the top American speech of the 20th century in a 1999 poll of scholars of public address, it was the highlight of the historic March on Washington, and instantly became a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement.