“Fifty years ago, Dr. King shared his dream with the world and described visions for a society that offered and delivered the promise of equal justice under law,” he said. “He assured his fellow citizens that his goals were within reach so long as they kept faith with one another and maintained the courage and the commitment to work toward it. And he urged them to do just that by calling for no more and no less than equal justice. By standing up for the civil rights to which everyone is entitled and by speaking up in the face of hatred, violence in defiance of those who sought to turn them back with fire hoses, bullets and bombs.”
Spoken by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, before tens of thousands of people on the National Mall, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Holder, the nation’s first black attorney general, praised those who faced repression and brutality to march a half century ago. He thanked them for standing up to “racist governments and governors.”
He went on to say, that without them, he’d never be the attorney general and Barack Obama would not be president.