the i have a dream came mid-speech when he started to feel it. if he just went into preacher mode and started to talk about this dream, that is not what he came to do. we ve done a lot of interviews with folks who were there. and i actually spoke with a gentleman, a white guy, who was head of the ncaap in miami. and he said what he remembered most was the part about the bad check. and that this notion after slavery had essentially said, we will make it right with the african-american, with the negro, at a time, and hasn t done so. and this march was so much about economic injustice, and so much about the part about jobs, justice, and freedom that the i have a dream part is a gauzy remembrance and in a way takes away from the underlying purpose of the march. and it didn t i take away from it in that moment, but in our historical willful misremembrance, we want to remember the holding hands and singing, but we don t want to talk about that check that was
will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. i have a dream! in 50 years, this country has made tremendous progress, but the effort to change this country for the better still lives on. and that s something the president, president obama reflected on during an event at a university in upstate new york earlier today. 50 years after the march on washington and i have a dream speech, obviously, we made enormous strides. i m a testament to it, you re a testament to it. the diversity of this room and, you know, the students that are here is a testimony to it. and that impulse towards making sure everybody gets a fair shot is one that found expression in
years ago. eric holder, the nation s first african-american attorney general is scheduled to speak during this hour. his will be among many speeches that we will bring you live. but first, i want to talk about the legacy of that day, 50 years ago, and how it has become inextricably linked with the legacy of the day s most famous speaker. so, joy, we often talk about, king came to the march and delivered the i have a dream speech, but in fact, those words were not even used. that was a riff, a common riff he had used previously. it s interesting, the prepared remarks that he actually came to deliver were quite different. the i have a dream was a riff he used in churches and many times before. but his prepared text was about the blank check, the bad check. the negro had been given this bad check. and it was really an indictment of the american system and what it had done.
americans to be free and it is a tribute to them that they have chosen to still appeal to their government in this type of dignified matter. i am melissa harris-perry and we are part of msnbc s live and continuing coverage of the 50th anniversary of the march on washington. you re looking right now at a live shot of the lincoln memorial. the lincoln memorial is, of course, an iconic image here on the mall in washington, d.c. it is from these steps at the lincoln memorial where dr. king delivered the speech which we now think of as the i have a dream speech. he stood and looked out over literally miles of bodies, of people who had come, black and white, people from the south and from the north people who were christian and people who were jewish, who came out faith. who stood in this place with a
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