]on Martin Luther King at 'The March on Washington', August 28, 1963] If you listen to the speech carefully - and this is important as we reflect now fifty years back - if you listen to the syntax of his reference to the dream, he does not speak in the present tense. He speaks in the future tense. He's speaking in his hope and belief in America. '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'. Future tense. Dr. King's speech was an affirmation of his prophetic belief that America had the capacity to be the best that it could be. The 'I Have a Dream' speech was a summons, a call, to the collective conscience of America, that we can be better than this. We can be better than this!
