EPA/JIM LO SCALZO Students with the Washington Dupont Park Adventist School take part in a 50th anniversary commemoration of Martin Luther King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech on Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., on Wednesday. 
 
 President Obama paid tribute to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Wednesday before throngs of people who descended on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his "I Have a Dream" speech, declaring that "his words belong to the ages." 
 
 King's address, delivered to 250,000 supporters, punctuated the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was a watershed moment for race relations in America that has been remembered in a week-long series of events, which culminated in remarks from President Obama on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial Wednesday afternoon. 
 
 "His words belong to the ages, possessing a power and prophecy unmatched in our time," Obama said of King. "We rightly and best remember Dr. King's soaring oratory that day, how he gave mighty voice to the quiet hopes of millions." 
 
 Pointing to laws, social change, and himself as an example of how far the nation has come since King's speech, Obama was quick to highlight economic disparities between whites and blacks as proof that King's dream hasn't been fully realized. 
 
 But he chided those who dismiss the gains that have been made by the people who marched for civil rights in 1963. 
 
 "On the battlefield of justice, men and women without rank, or wealth, or title, or fame would liberate us all, in ways that our children now take for granted," Obama said. "To dismiss the magnitude of this progress, to suggest as some sometimes do that little has changed, that dishonors the courage and the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years." 
 
 In an interview with PBS Newshour after his speech, Obama said he would continue to push his economic agenda — including early childhood education, an increase in the minimum wage, cutting college costs and spurring the housing recovery — as a way forward in the struggle for equal rights. 
 
 “Where Congress is unwilling to move, we’ll move,” Obama said. 
 
 “Part of what Dr. King talked about, part of what I think we have to get back to, is a recognition that the working man in Arkansas who happens to be white and the black woman in Philadelphia who wants to work but is having a tough time finding a job, that they have things in common. That in fact they can work together.” 
 
 Celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Jamie Foxx were among a list of speakers who addressed a nation that has made great strides in racial equality since King's "dream" speech helped bring about landmark civil rights legislation. 
 
 "Dr. King was the passionate voice that awakened the conscience of the nation," Winfrey told the people in the crowd, urging them to carry on his message. "He challenged us to see how we all are more alike than we are different." 
 
 According to BCT Consulting, the organizers of today's event, there were "give or take 100,000 folks in today's attendance." 
 
 Betty Gray, 67, traveled to Washington from Richmond, Va., for the anniversary of the speech, which she went to 50 years ago. She said she took the NAACP bus for four dollars round-trip 50 years ago and went because her mother was a civil rights activist who was honored by former President Harry Truman for helping sign black people up to vote. 
 
 "It's in my mom's memory that I'm here today," said Gray, who also attended both inaugurations for Obama. 
 
 Occasional rain showers were forecast to hit Washington throughout the day, but the overcast, humid weather didn't deter crowds: Thousands had already packed the National Mall as of early Wednesday morning, NBCWashington.com reported. Some carried umbrellas or were wearing ponchos. 
 
 At one point during the events — amid Leann Rimes' rendition of "Amazing Grace" — a rainbow appeared over the sky. 
 
 As crowds filled the Mall in the shadow of a scaffold-covered Washington Monument — still under repair from an earthquake two years ago — they passed by vendors selling t-shirts, buttons, and bells marking the anniversary. Young and old — kids on summer break, college students and senior citizens — were part of the masses. 
 
 Carlo Dellaverson / NBC News Imogen Hutchinson, 60, left, with her friend, Reba Diggs, 81, at the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. "My parents were scared for King," Hutchinson said. 
 
 Imogen Hutchinson, 60 — born and raised in Alabama as the daughter of a sharecropper — recalled life at the time of the March on Washington. 
 
 "I remember being afraid all the time," she said. "My parents were scared for King." 
 
 Hutchinson's friend, Reba Diggs, 81, has lived in Washington since 1951, but couldn't make the 1963 march because of health reasons. 
 
 "I was determined to come this time," she said. "I am so proud of what Martin Luther King did here." 
 
 Dianne Hardy, 68, from Maryland, had also wanted to come, but said her mother wouldn't let her. 
 
 "She thought the march was threatening," she said. "It's so awesome [to be here today]." 
 
 Carlo Dellaverson / NBC News Peter Sussman, 72, points at a photo of the 1963 march, which he attended. "I'm not an activist, but i feel a great sense of outrage over injustices to other people," he said. 
 
 Peter Sussman, 72, of Berkeley. Calif., had been living in a predominantly white part of Long Island, N.Y., at the time of the march. He had just finished college at the time and upon hearing about the march, "I knew I had to be there." 
 
 "It really was a national convergence like I've never seen," Sussman said. "When I got home, my parents, who didn't think much of me going to the march, were waiting up for me because they knew having seen it on TV that it was a piece of American history that I had just experienced. They wanted to hear all about it." 
 
 Sussman returned to the Mall on Wednesday wearing the same button that was handed out to him 50 years ago, this time confined to a wheelchair due to spine issues. 
 
 "To be here today is a dream of mine," he said. 
 
 Events were planned throughout the day to mark the 50th anniversary, starting with a 9 a.m. interfaith service. Speakers, including various senators and congressmen and NAACP President Ben Jealous, were also part of the commemoration. 
 
 "As we go home today, let us remember that the dreamer was also a doer," Jealous said. "Let us not just be dreamers this day. Let us recommit to being doers." 
 
 Family members of King also spoke. Martin Luther King III, King's son, said his dad "challenged" his supporters to love all other people, regardless of who they were. 
 
 "He often talked about how sometimes we must take positions that are not safe or unpopular ... because our conscience tells us they are right, King III said. 
 
 Christine King Farris, King's sister, described the pride she felt in her brother's legacy. "The dream my brother shared with our nation and the world on that sweltering day 50 years ago continues to nurture and sustain nonviolent activists worldwide and their struggles for freedom." 
 
 Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who witnessed King's speech, was also among those who addressed the crowd on Wednesday. 
 
 "Fifty years ago at this place, at this sacred place, Americans sent a message to their leaders and around the world that the promise of equality, of opportunity, equality before law ... applied to everyone in this country, not just the lucky few of the right color or the accident of birth," he said. 
 
 Peter and Paul, from the singing trio Peter, Paul and Mary, got on stage to sing "Blowin' in the Wind," the 1962 Bob Dylan hit that they had sung in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, turning the song into an anthem for interracial relations. 
 
 Singing it again Wednesday in the same spot 50 years later, they were joined by the parents of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teen whose killing in February of 2012 sparked a national debate on race relations. 
 
 Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter also spoke at the ceremony, which included bell-ringing at 3 p.m. ET — 50 years to the minute after King called for civil rights with the words "let freedom ring." 
 
 "I'm thankful to Martin Luther King Jr. that his dream is still alive," Carter said. 
 
 Clinton thanked those who attended King's march. 
 
 "What a debt we owe to those people who came here 50 years ago," he said, adding that King "urged the victims of racial violence to meet white Americans with an outstreched hand, not a clenched fist." 
 
 About 50 communities and organizations across the U.S. rang bells when the clock struck 3 p.m. 
 
 Tokyo and the Swiss city of Lutry also took part in the bell-ringing, an event organizer told Reuters. 
 
 Former President George W. Bush, who wasn't in attendance, called on the nation to carry on King's legacy in a statement released Wednesday. 
 
 From the Archives: Martin Luther King Jr. looks back on his "I Have a Dream" speech in 1967 and offers a surprisingly blunt assessment of the progress made since that historic day in 1963. King warns of "difficult days ahead" in this extraordinary, long unseen interview with NBC's Sander Vanocur. 
 
 "Dr. King was on this Earth just 39 years, but the ideals that guided his life of conscience and purpose are eternal. Honoring him requires the commitment of every one of us. There's still a need for every American to help hasten the day when Dr. King's vision is made real in every community — when what truly matters is not the color of a person's skin, but the content of their character," he said. 
 
 The country remains deeply divided over how much progress there has been toward racial equality in the half-century since the march. According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, fewer than half of Americans believe "substantial" progress has been made toward King's dream over the last 50 years. Among blacks, fewer than one-in-three say the same. 
 
 However, in other areas such as high school completion, life expectancy and voter turnout, the gaps have narrowed or — in the case of the latter — disappeared entirely. 
 
 Yet Wednesday's commemoration takes place in the waning days of a summer in which various conversations on race relations struck a chord in the national mood. 
 
 In July, Obama delivered personal, unscripted remarks on issues of race after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin. 
 
 And earlier this month in New York City, a federal judge ruled that the controversial "stop-and-frisk" tactic used by police violated the Constitution and amounted to "indirect racial profiling." 
 
 Entertainer and activist Harry Belafonte talks about race relations 50 years ago compared to today. Belafonte also reflects on his friendship with Martin Luther King, Jr., and the March on Washington. 
 
 In addition to the current and former presidents scheduled to speak Wednesday, Rep. John Lewis of Georgia addressed the crowd. Lewis was the youngest speaker at the 1963 march and delivered a speech that admonished the Kennedy administration for doing "too little, too late" for southern blacks. 
 
 Lewis was among the civil rights advocates who spoke out last weekend against the Supreme Court's ruling on voting laws as thousands retraced King's footsteps in an organized march. 
 
 "This moment in our history has been a long time coming, but the change has come. We our standing here in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln, 150 years after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation," Lewis said. 
 
 Lewis described to the crowd how in the 1960s, "black and white people could not be seated together on a Greyhound bus." King's words, he said, "captured the heart of people, not just around America, but around the world." 
 
 "Fifty years later, we can ride anywhere we want to ride," Lewis said. 
 
 The scars of racism still remain deeply embedded in American society, he said, citing Trayvon Martin's case and stop-and-frisk. 
 
 "We must never, ever give up. We must never, ever give in," he said. 
 
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 This story was originally published on ||||| Few speeches echo across generations. When they do they share important characteristics. They are breathtakingly courageous, or uniquely of the moment, or both. They combine elements of drama, language and context with a manner of delivery that matches the message's significance. The speech that Martin Luther King made on 28 August 1963, to 250,000 Americans who had marched on Washington, was all these things. 
 
 It could hardly have been made in a more portentous setting, in the shadow of the Lincoln memorial in the heart of political Washington. It was the climax of hard months of protest against segregationist laws that kept African American kids out of colleges and coffee bars, women from sitting on buses, families from choosing the best schools. Protest was broken up by the kind of brutality that still clings to the name of places like Birmingham and Selma. 
 
 President John F Kennedy, fearing riots, had asked civil rights leaders to call off the march. When it went ahead, the FBI installed a panic button in the sound system to cut off inflammatory speech, helicopters hovered above and 19,000 troops were on standby. Dr King himself, a small figure behind a forest of microphones, was the last of 10 speakers. It seems likely that in its early parts, his speech may read better now than it sounded at the time. That at least is one explanation for the singer Mahalia Jackson shouting out, "Tell 'em about the dream, Martin!", prompting Dr King to set aside his prepared text and launch into one of the most famous perorations ever delivered. 
 
 But there are other reasons why it is such a milestone. The speech was equally persuasive to its two audiences. For black listeners, it was about economic justice and the nation's default on Lincoln's promissory note guaranteeing all men the unalienable rights of life, liberty and justice. But for the many white people who had marched in solidarity, it was at least as much an amplification of a television broadcast made three months earlier, where President Kennedy lifted the fight against racism out of the politics of rights and redefined it as a question of morality. 
 
 Within two years of what was soon known as "the Dream speech", civil rights and voting laws were finally enacted. Lincoln's promissory note was, in legislative terms, honoured at last. Yet, 50 years on, it is bitterly apparent that it is still not honoured in the everyday lives of African Americans. A black president, yes, but unemployment levels, earnings and the justice system all indicate a society where equality is in retreat. Speeches can only do so much. The dream remains unfinished business: but that only reinforces the power of that moment when Dr King found the words to make people be better than they were, and the speech's enduring power to inspire. ||||| Story highlights Obama commemorates the 50th anniversary of King's "I Have a Dream" speech 
 
 King's words "belong to the ages," Obama says 
 
 As the first black president, Obama is seen as a product of the civil rights movement 
 
 Heralding the long fight toward racial equality that many say hasn't ended, President Barack Obama commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech Wednesday on the same steps the civil rights leader spoke from half a century ago. 
 
 "His words belong to the ages, possessing a power and prophecy unmatched in our time," Obama told a diverse crowd that gathered under gray skies and intermittent drizzle to attend the hours-long ceremony. 
 
 King, Obama said, "gave mighty voice to the quiet hopes of millions," hailing leaders who braved intimidation and violence in their fight for equal rights. 
 
 On that August day in 1963, when King and his fellow marchers attended what he labeled "the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation," few in that crowd could have imagined that half a century later, an African-American president of the United States would mark the occasion with a speech in the same location. 
 
 And during his remarks from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Obama cast his own election to the Oval Office as a consequence of persistence and courage from leaders such as King. 
 
 "Because they kept marching, America changed," Obama said. "Because they marched, city councils changed and state legislatures changed and Congress changed and, yes, eventually, the White House changed." 
 
 While other, negative changes have forestalled the push toward racial harmony, Obama stressed Wednesday that the work of civil rights leaders had permanently changed the discourse between races in America. 
 
 "To dismiss the magnitude of this process, to suggest, as some sometimes do, that little has changed, that dishonors the courage and the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years," Obama said. 
 
 Adopting words from another of King's speeches, Obama declared that "the arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice, but it doesn't bend on its own." 
 
 Leaders speaking at Wednesday's anniversary event, including Obama, stressed that income disparity, high unemployment and a shrinking middle class have slashed hopes for attaining equality for millions of Americans, though the president said those facts couldn't erase the forward march of the civil rights movement. 
 
 "To secure the gains this country has made requires constant vigilance, not complacency," he said, adding, "We will suffer the occasional setback, but we will win these fights. This country has changed too much." 
 
 In an interview after the speech, he said he wished his policies had done more to improve the gap between those who have wealth and those who do not. 
 
 "It certainly weighs on me," he told PBS. "In my first term, essentially, my job was to make sure, as you said, that the economy didn't just completely collapse." 
 
 Other speakers Wednesday marked the great progress toward King's goal of racial accord, though many suggested that the dream was far from realized, specifically citing voter identification laws that critics say prevent African-Americans from casting ballots, and the verdict in the closely watched Trayvon Martin murder trial. 
 
 "We have come a great distance in this country in the 50 years. But we still have a great distance to go before we fulfill the dream of Martin Luther King Jr.," said U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, adding that progress toward King's goal could be marked by his own election to Congress. 
 
 "But there are still invisible signs, barriers in the hearts of humankind that form a gulf between us," said Lewis, the only speaker from the 1963 march who also spoke Wednesday. 
 
 Another leader from King's era of the civil rights movement, Myrlie Evers-Williams, said the United States had "certainly taken a turn backwards" in the quest for civil rights. 
 
 Two former presidents also delivered remarks Wednesday, each representing a distinct era in the movement for equal rights in America. President Jimmy Carter, speaking ahead of Obama, asserted that recent developments in American policy would have disappointed King. 
 
 "I believe we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to the new ID requirements to exclude certain voters, especially African-Americans," said Carter, a Democrat. "I think we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to the Supreme Court striking down a crucial part of the Voting Rights Act just recently passed overwhelmingly by Congress." 
 
 And another Democratic president, Bill Clinton, argued during his speech for working together against stalemates and inaction, saying King "did not live and die to hear his heirs whine about political gridlock." 
 
 "It is time to stop complaining and put our shoulders against the stubborn gates holding the American people back," Clinton said. 
 
 Neither of the living former Republican presidents attended Wednesday's event. In fact, no elected Republican delivered remarks at the 50th anniversary commemoration. George H.W. Bush and his son George W. Bush both opted out, citing health concerns. The latter is recovering from a recent heart procedure. 
 
 Before Obama addressed the throngs gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, civil rights leaders past and present remembered the decades-long movement to secure equal treatment and rights for African-Americans. 
 
 The daughters of two presidents key to enacting the Civil Rights Act were also present: Lynda Johnson Robb and Caroline Kennedy, whom Obama recently nominated as ambassador to Japan. 
 
 Celebrities and entertainers at the event included Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey, who star as husband and wife in one of the summer's hottest movies, "Lee Daniels' The Butler," about life in the White House through the eyes of the (mostly black) hired help. 
 
 Winfrey declared that King had seen injustice and "refused to look the other way." 
 
 "We, too, can be courageous by continuing to walk in the footsteps of the path that he forged," Winfrey said. 
 
 Two musicians who performed at the 1963 march also sang Wednesday. Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey, from the trio Peter, Paul and Mary, sang Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," backed by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, the parents of Trayvon Martin, whose 2012 shooting death sparked a national conversation about race. Mary Travers, the third artist in the group, died in 2009. 
 
 Obama's most personal remarks on race ahead of Wednesday's speech came in the aftermath of the July verdict that found Martin's killer not guilty. 
 
 In the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial, attendees used the occasion to remember where they were when they first heard King's "I have a Dream" speech. 
 
 "I grew up in a segregated environment. I never met a white person till I was a junior in college," said Betty Waller Gray, who traveled to Wednesday's march from Richmond. "It was just so emotional to be here today after knowing where I was in 1963. I was just a kid finishing high school back then." 
 
 Gilbert Lyons, an employee of the National Park Service, attended the original March on Washington half a century ago and heard King utter his famous works in person. 
 
 "I went home with it in my head. I even spoke to my wife about it," he said. "It stayed with me. And the more I heard about Martin Luther King, the more things he was doing, I said, 'this man is great. He is a gentleman that can bring America back to themselves like they're supposed to be.' We're not supposed to be this race and that race. We are Americans." ||||| In front of the Lincoln Memorial in June, a group of students caught up in a moment of spontaneous patriotism broke into song. But the US Park Police were quick to shush the members of the Young America’s Foundation, saying singing is not allowed at the memorial. The song that was stifled? “The Star-Spangled Banner.” 
 
 So much for freedom of speech. 
 
 At the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta this July, an official at the memorial to one of the greatest civil rights leaders in the world – my Uncle Martin – removed a bullhorn from the hands of Father Frank Pavone, an internationally recognized leader of the pro-life movement. We were a group more than 100 strong, in Atlanta to declare that abortion is the greatest violation of civil rights in our day. We brought a wreath to lay at Uncle Martin’s grave while we prayed, but due to a King Center official’s barricade at the gravesite, we weren’t allowed. The National Park Service said that would constitute a demonstration. 
 
 So much for freedom of assembly. 
 
 Symbols of liberty 
 
 Americans are hungry to reclaim the symbols of our liberty, hard won by an unlikely group of outnumbered, outgunned, underfunded patriots determined not to live in servitude to the British Empire. If we want to sing the national anthem at a memorial to the man who led this fledgling nation out of slavery, and made my people free, we should be able to send our voices soaring to the heavens. 
 
 Glenn Beck’s “Rally to Restore Honor” this Saturday will give us that chance, and that’s why I feel it’s important for me to be there. 
 
 Before the words were out of Mr. Beck’s mouth announcing the Aug. 28 rally, The New York Times noted that it would be at the same place and 47 years to the day since my Uncle Martin gave his “I Have a Dream Speech.” When asked why he chose that date in particular, Beck said he had not realized its significance, but in thinking about it, he saw it is an auspicious day to rally for the honor of the American people. He has said, and he’s right, that Martin Luther King didn’t speak only for African-Americans. He spoke for all Americans, and his words still ring true. 
 
 Other groups are planning rallies and demonstrations in Washington that day, and freedom of speech gives them the right to do so – and to criticize me for not jumping on their bandwagon. But Uncle Martin’s legacy is big enough to go around. 
 
 A rally about character, not politics 
 
 Though critics see it as partisan, Beck’s rally is not a political event, per se. Instead, it is designed to be a refreshing exercise of freedom of speech. 
 
 The rally will be a celebration of who we are as a nation and a chance to stop for a moment, reflect, reorganize, and re-energize. It’s a chance to think about character; both our character as a nation and our character as individuals. 
 
 Delineating ourselves as red state or blue, liberal or conservative, minority or majority, we have not quite reached the day when men and women are “judged not by the color of their skin but on the content of their character.” We are still marching toward that day. As Uncle Martin said, “we cannot turn back.” 
 
 The rally will also give America another chance to honor and thank the men and women in our armed forces for the dangers they face every day in our stead. Unless you have a loved one in Iraq or Afghanistan, it’s too easy to forget that tens of thousands of Americans are far from the comforts of home, are directly in harm’s way, facing an enemy who hates us precisely because we are free. And coming just days before the ninth anniversary of 9/11, the day that roused us from our complacency, we could use another wakeup call, one of our own devising. 
 
 When I join Beck and all gathered at the Lincoln Memorial this weekend, I will talk about my Uncle Martin and the America he envisioned. I will talk about honor and character and sacrifice. I will be joined by those who represent the diversity of the human race. 
 
 On Saturday, Uncle Martin’s dream of personhood and human dignity will resound across America. And the Park Police should consider themselves forewarned: As we stand in the symbolic shadow of the great American who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, we just might sing. 
 
 Dr. Alveda King is the director of African-American outreach for Priests for Life, and the founder of King for America.
– Some excerpts from today's speeches at the Lincoln Memorial honoring the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, from CNN, the AP, and NBC News. President Obama: "His words belong to the ages, possessing a power and prophecy unmatched in our time. We remember how he gave mighty voice to the quiet hopes of millions." Obama added: "Because they kept marching, America changed. Because they marched, the civil rights law was passed. Because they marched, a voting rights law was signed. Because they marched, city councils changed and state legislatures changed and Congress changed and, yes, eventually, the White House changed." Bill Clinton: "It is time to stop complaining and put our shoulders against the stubborn gates holding the American people back." Jimmy Carter: "I believe we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to the new ID requirements to exclude certain voters, especially African-Americans. I think we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to the Supreme Court striking down a crucial part of the Voting Rights Act just recently passed overwhelmingly by Congress." Rep. John Lewis: "We have come a great distance ... but there are still invisible signs, barriers in the hearts of humankind that form a gulf between us." Oprah Winfrey: "We, too, can be courageous by continuing to walk in the footsteps of the path that he forged." Also today, about 300 churches and schools around the world were ringing their bells at 3pm local time to commemorate the anniversary. A Gallup poll finds that 60% of African Americans think a white person is more likely to get a job over a black person even if they're equally qualified. Only 39% say blacks and whites have an equal chance in such cases.