Aug 28, 2008 7:19 pm US/Eastern
Obama Speaks On 45th 'I Have A Dream' Anniversary
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
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Martin Luther King Jr., made his "I have a dream speech" on Aug. 28, 1963.
WBZ
When Barack Obama makes his acceptance speech in Denver Thursday night, he'll make history. But, this isn't the first time there's been a historic speech delivered on this date.
Forty-five years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his resounding "I Have a Dream" speech.
"It was like music," said Julian Houston, a retired Boston judge. "The speech itself was like a piece of music and the words were words that you remember the rest of your life."
Judge Houston was just a 19-year-old college student when he drove to Washington, D.C. that day to hear King speak. He knew it would be moving then, and the words continue to move him decades later.
"What he was saying was so representative of what those of us who were working in the civil rights movement were experiencing every day," Houston said.
Obama is expected to acknowledge King and the anniversary in his speech Thursday night. Boston University Professor Dale Andrews, a MLK expert, believes it will be early in the speech. He says people will be waiting for it.
"It would be a mistake I think for Barack Obama to avoid the claim that he stands in the shadows of a figure in Washington who appealed to the conscience of a nation," Andrews said.
As for how King would react to Obama's party nomination, Andrews said, "I think he would dance in the streets."
Judge Houston says you can't really compare the history-making Dream speech to Thurday's history-making acceptance speech, but you can just take pride in knowing one has led to the other.
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