Sit-in unites with hip-hop to commemorate King's beautiful dream

Forty years after the Reverend Martin Luther King made one of the most compelling and memorable speeches in American history, thousands of campaigners and supporters will today gather in the nation's capital to commemorate his "dream" and focus on how for millions of citizens it has been only partially realised.

Speaking on the steps of Washington's Lincoln Memorial on the sweltering evening of 28 August 1963, Dr King outlined to the quarter-of-a-million people in front of him his vision for an equal world: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal." Millions more watched on television as the three US networks carried his speech live.

Yesterday, as part of a weekend rally to celebrate and mark the anniversary, a plaque was unveiled by Dr King's widow, Coretta Scott King, on the very spot where he spoke. Though the speech - and the so-called "March on Washington", involving hundreds of thousands of people - was decisive in pushing through the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Dr King was assassinated in 1968.

But Dr King's eldest son, Martin Luther King III, who was just five when his father was shot dead on the balcony of a motel in Memphis, Tennessee, said that for millions of black Americans the dream had been only partially realised. Standing just a few yards from where his father delivered his speech, he told The Independent: "Forty years is a long time in the struggle for progress. Basically, what I think this means is that we must look at the conditions in America today: 45 million people have no health insurance, five million are homeless, black men earn 60 cents to the dollar earned by a white man [and] black women earn 70 cents.

"I think the dream he had has not been realised yet. We have to work to make his dream become a reality. I am very excited by the opportunity we have today. It's a great opportunity to bring the sit-in generation together with the hip-hop generation."

Jesse Jackson, president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, one of more than 100 groups co- ordinating the rally, said the media had misrepresented the theme of the 1963 speech and ignored Dr King's more concrete demand for the US to make good on its promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for its black citizens.

"The dream was that the promise would be honoured," Mr Jackson told the Washington Post. "For many people, the dream remained in the realm of imagination, but the promise involved ... a budget to offset the crippling poverty that African-Americans were living in. Today, 40 years later, the cry remains 'Honour the promise'."

Mr Jackson's words were echoed by some of the black Americans visiting the Lincoln Memorial yesterday. "When I look at America today I think it has come a long way. This is particularly true in terms of education, where people now go to one institution," said Willie Freeman, from Portsmouth, Virginia. "But people's opinions still have to change. You have to change people's opinions. If you can't do that you can't change the world."

Organisers of the weekend's events say they will kick-start a year-long project to increase voter registration in an effort to overcome the right-wing agenda that they claim is standing in the way of many of Dr King's ambitions being realised.