50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's death: Did his 'dream' come true?
By Elliott Wallace
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Five decades after his assassination, civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. remains an important and iconic figure in both the US and globally.
Among his many speeches, he remains best-known for his “I Have A Dream” address at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.
With its message of hope, progress and equality, King’s words continue to have an impact decades later.
CGTN asked people at the Lincoln Memorial how they felt about King’s "dream" today, whether it had been deferred, denied or was coming to fruition.
MLK's final protest
By the late 1960’s, King began to focus his attention on the problem of poverty in the US.
During one of his final speeches at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, King called poverty a major challenge to the country.
He would focus his energy, with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil rights organization he led, into creating the Poor People’s Movement. The organization planned a summer rally to bring the impoverished of America to the US Capitol to voice their grievances to the government.
Sadly, King’s life was cut short by an assassin’s bullet on April 4, 1968.
However, thousands of activists and protesters continued his work on poverty in the US and led a month-long protest in Washington, DC.