One was a Quaker, a nurse involved in the civil rights movement, sitting among the tens of thousands gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial. One was a New Yorker who had made a last-minute pilgrimage. Another was a seminary classmate of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., standing near him on the platform, stepping closer as King strode to the podium - a sign of support for a man who was a lightning rod for controversy.
And then there was the Rev. Vernon Dobson, a civil rights activist who worked with King, stunned as 250,000 people were hushed into silence by a sermon that revolved around four simple words.
I have a dream
Dobson wept.
On the 45th anniversary of King's immortal speech, Sen. Barack Obama will accept the Democratic presidential nomination and address the nation as he moves one step closer in his attempt to make history as the nation's first black president.
A post-civil rights candidate, Obama was born two years before the March on Washington, in a year when Mississippi was jailing freedom riders. He grew up with the benefits that came from the movement and the challenges that came from his own unique background. He was raised by a white mother and had a largely absentee African father and an upbringing that brought him from Hawaii to Indonesia and back.
Still, observers say those watching Obama speak at the convention in Denver tonight will view a black man addressing the nation in a historic moment that in some ways fulfills the dream King articulated on Aug. 28, 1963.
"The original March on Washington became a symbol of hope," said Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of a trilogy on King. "People expected a riot and were stunned that it turned out to be not only something positive but something that went to the core of our patriotic values. Now, Obama is trying to stand as the leader of patriotic values and I think people are still blinking their eyes that it's only 45 years later."In 1963 authorities stockpiled plasma because they expected violence. Liquor stores were closed. Two major league baseball games that were supposed to take place nearby were canceled. "So what's easy to forget is just how much the things we take for granted have changed," said Branch. "Then it was assumed that black people couldn't gather in large numbers anywhere near politics without upheaval. Now, you've got a black person contending for the highest office in the country. It's a pretty big change."
