It was a day to remember! August 28, 1963. 250,000 supporters gathered at the Lincoln Memorial for a march on Washington for Jobs & Freedom. The weather was typical of late summer D.C. with a high of 82 degrees, low of 63, and no precipitation. Even so, the crowd sweltered in sun and humidity. Several speakers addressed the throng, but it was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 17-minute speech that carried the day. He effectively defined the Civil Rights movement and the struggle for justice in the United States.

Dr. King was the last speaker. He came prepared with words of homage to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and timed it to correspond with the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. His charismatic, powerful words aimed to incite peaceful change. “It may well be that the Negro is God’s instrument to save the soul of America.”

Toward the end of his delivery, Mahalia Jackson (a noted African American gospel singer) shouted to King from the crowd, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.” Dr. King then improvised the conclusion of his speech with his now famous “I have a dream” list of needed changes. Most famous among them was, “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’.”

In this artwork, Dr. King wears an Earth lapel pin. The artist likes to believe that if Dr. King was still with us, he would preach about his dreams to save our planet.