Finally, in the late afternoon, the last of the speakers stands on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It is Martin Luther King, Jr . He begins with a prepared speech. Then something happens. He lets go of using his speech and speaks straight from his heart. Here is what he says: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed—that all men are created equal.... I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today! I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama with its vicious racists ... little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today!...

"And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside, let freedom ring! And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all God's children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: 'Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last .' "

Nineteen days later, on September 16, 1963, a bomb explodes during Sunday school at Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Four girls are killed. The quest for American freedom is anything but over.