Fifty years later, tributes to Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech—and reflections on the speech and the man—abound. A sampling:
- King was a modern-day founding father, "equal to Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Hamilton," writes Nicholas Burns in the Boston Globe. He helped to eliminate Jim Crow laws, changing the country permanently. He preached nonviolence and hopefulness "rather than hatred and revenge." Ultimately, he helped to create the America that elected a black president. And all of that makes King "the most significant American since Lincoln."