On January 20, 2025, Americans mark Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 39 years to the day that the holiday was first celebrated. President Ronald Reagan signed legislation on November 2, 1983 to make Martin Luther King, Jr. Day a federal holiday in the United States, and the holiday was first celebrated on January 20, 1986 to honor the life and legacy of a man who advanced the important cause of civil rights through peaceful, non-violent protest.

Following are excerpts from Dr. King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, which he delivered on August 28, 1963 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial – a memorial in Washington, D.C. honoring President Abraham Lincoln, who had signed the Emancipation Proclamation 100 years earlier, in 1863.

“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 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….

“This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning: ‘My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims’ pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.’

“And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And 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, and 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.”

Dr. King’s life was tragically cut short on April 4, 1968, when he was taken by an assassin’s bullet in Memphis, Tennessee. Saddened by what had happened in his hometown of Memphis, Elvis Presley, that same year, recorded the song “If I Can Dream.” The words rang true in 1968, as they do today:  “If I can dream of a better land, where all my brothers walk hand in hand, tell me why, oh why, oh why can’t my dream come true? There must be peace and understanding sometime….We’re lost in a cloud with too much rain. We’re trapped in a world that’s troubled with pain….Out there in the dark, there’s a beckoning candle…..”