Sixty percent of U.S. blacks say whites have better chances than blacks to get jobs 
 
 PRINCETON, NJ -- Sixty percent of U.S. blacks believe whites have better chances than blacks to get jobs for which they are qualified, while 39% believe whites and blacks have equal opportunities. Blacks' views are more positive now than they were in 1963, when 74% thought whites had better chances at jobs. Blacks have felt disadvantaged versus whites in terms of job hiring in all but a couple of instances over the last 50 years. 
 
 The results, based on an Aug. 9-22 Gallup poll of 1,001 blacks, suggest some progress on this front in the 50 years since Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech laid out his vision of racial equality in the United States. However, with blacks continuing to feel the odds are stacked against them in hiring, they suggest King's vision has not been fully realized in this respect. 
 
 When Gallup asked the same question of a national sample in a June 13-July 5 poll, Americans overall were much more positive than blacks about equality of job opportunities for blacks -- 68% of Americans said blacks have as good a chance as whites to get jobs for which they are qualified, while 31% disagreed. 
 
 Most Blacks See Equality of Educational Opportunities 
 
 Blacks' perceptions about equality in childhood education are more positive than their views of equality of job opportunities. Fifty-six percent of blacks believe that black children have the same chance as white children in their community to get a good education, while 43% believe black children do not have the same chance. 
 
 While positive on balance, the results are essentially unchanged since King's days. In 1962, 53% of blacks said black children had educational opportunities equal to whites' opportunities. And today's results are less positive than what Gallup measured from the late 1980s through the late 1990s, when as many as 68% said black and white children had the same opportunity to get a good education. 
 
 Blacks are also less optimistic than Americans overall about educational opportunities. In the June-July poll, 77% of Americans believed black children have the same chance as white children to get a good education, while 23% said that is not the case. These views have changed little in the last 50 years; in 1962, 83% of Americans perceived equality of educational opportunity. 
 
 Blacks Divided on Equality of Housing Opportunities for Blacks 
 
 A narrow majority of blacks, 51%, say blacks have as good a chance as whites to get any housing they can afford, while 48% disagree. This question, dating from 1989, does not have as long a history as the questions on job and educational opportunities. Over this time, blacks have typically been divided or slightly more optimistic than pessimistic about equal housing opportunities. 
 
 Earlier this year, in the national poll, 79% of Americans said blacks had equal opportunities for housing, while 20% said they did not. Those views are more positive than the ones Gallup measured in the late 1980s and early 1990s. 
 
 Many Blacks See Discrimination in Matters of Economics and Justice 
 
 A separate question in the poll asked blacks directly whether they thought discrimination was mostly the reason blacks tend to have lower income, jobs, and housing than whites. Forty percent see discrimination as the major reason for these economic disparities by race, while 57% think it is due to factors apart from discrimination. 
 
 Slightly fewer blacks now perceive discrimination to be at work in economic matters than in 1993, 40% versus 44%. 
 
 Blacks are more likely to see discrimination at work in the greater prevalence of black than white males in prison. Fifty-two percent of blacks believe the disparities are mostly due to discrimination, while 46% believe other factors explain them. 
 
 Zimmerman Verdict Had Little Impact on Views of Opportunity, Discrimination 
 
 Gallup conducted its recent poll of blacks to update blacks' views of racial matters in the aftermath of the George Zimmerman verdict. In contrast to other matters of race, including the need for new civil rights laws and assessments of how blacks are treated, blacks' views of equality of opportunity and discrimination do not appear to have changed in the weeks since the July 13 Zimmerman verdict, when compared with the results of Gallup's June 13-July 5 Minority Rights and Relations poll. The one possible exception is a five-percentage-point drop in blacks' belief that they and whites have equal housing opportunities. 
 
 Implications 
 
 Fifty years after Martin Luther King's landmark speech on racial equality, many blacks -- in some cases, a majority -- feel that blacks do not have equality with whites in matters of jobs, education, and housing. And at least four in 10 blacks perceive racial discrimination as a major factor in explaining why blacks have generally lower standards of living than whites, and why blacks are imprisoned at higher rates than whites. 
 
 Americans as a whole are more positive about equal opportunities for blacks than blacks themselves are. Thus, Americans overall may see the United States as closer to realizing King's vision than blacks do. ||||| Story highlights Obama commemorates the 50th anniversary of King's "I Have a Dream" speech 
 
 King's words "belong to the ages," Obama says 
 
 As the first black president, Obama is seen as a product of the civil rights movement 
 
 Heralding the long fight toward racial equality that many say hasn't ended, President Barack Obama commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech Wednesday on the same steps the civil rights leader spoke from half a century ago. 
 
 "His words belong to the ages, possessing a power and prophecy unmatched in our time," Obama told a diverse crowd that gathered under gray skies and intermittent drizzle to attend the hours-long ceremony. 
 
 King, Obama said, "gave mighty voice to the quiet hopes of millions," hailing leaders who braved intimidation and violence in their fight for equal rights. 
 
 On that August day in 1963, when King and his fellow marchers attended what he labeled "the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation," few in that crowd could have imagined that half a century later, an African-American president of the United States would mark the occasion with a speech in the same location. 
 
 And during his remarks from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Obama cast his own election to the Oval Office as a consequence of persistence and courage from leaders such as King. 
 
 "Because they kept marching, America changed," Obama said. "Because they marched, city councils changed and state legislatures changed and Congress changed and, yes, eventually, the White House changed." 
 
 While other, negative changes have forestalled the push toward racial harmony, Obama stressed Wednesday that the work of civil rights leaders had permanently changed the discourse between races in America. 
 
 "To dismiss the magnitude of this process, to suggest, as some sometimes do, that little has changed, that dishonors the courage and the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years," Obama said. 
 
 Adopting words from another of King's speeches, Obama declared that "the arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice, but it doesn't bend on its own." 
 
 Leaders speaking at Wednesday's anniversary event, including Obama, stressed that income disparity, high unemployment and a shrinking middle class have slashed hopes for attaining equality for millions of Americans, though the president said those facts couldn't erase the forward march of the civil rights movement. 
 
 "To secure the gains this country has made requires constant vigilance, not complacency," he said, adding, "We will suffer the occasional setback, but we will win these fights. This country has changed too much." 
 
 In an interview after the speech, he said he wished his policies had done more to improve the gap between those who have wealth and those who do not. 
 
 "It certainly weighs on me," he told PBS. "In my first term, essentially, my job was to make sure, as you said, that the economy didn't just completely collapse." 
 
 Other speakers Wednesday marked the great progress toward King's goal of racial accord, though many suggested that the dream was far from realized, specifically citing voter identification laws that critics say prevent African-Americans from casting ballots, and the verdict in the closely watched Trayvon Martin murder trial. 
 
 "We have come a great distance in this country in the 50 years. But we still have a great distance to go before we fulfill the dream of Martin Luther King Jr.," said U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, adding that progress toward King's goal could be marked by his own election to Congress. 
 
 "But there are still invisible signs, barriers in the hearts of humankind that form a gulf between us," said Lewis, the only speaker from the 1963 march who also spoke Wednesday. 
 
 Another leader from King's era of the civil rights movement, Myrlie Evers-Williams, said the United States had "certainly taken a turn backwards" in the quest for civil rights. 
 
 Two former presidents also delivered remarks Wednesday, each representing a distinct era in the movement for equal rights in America. President Jimmy Carter, speaking ahead of Obama, asserted that recent developments in American policy would have disappointed King. 
 
 "I believe we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to the new ID requirements to exclude certain voters, especially African-Americans," said Carter, a Democrat. "I think we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to the Supreme Court striking down a crucial part of the Voting Rights Act just recently passed overwhelmingly by Congress." 
 
 And another Democratic president, Bill Clinton, argued during his speech for working together against stalemates and inaction, saying King "did not live and die to hear his heirs whine about political gridlock." 
 
 "It is time to stop complaining and put our shoulders against the stubborn gates holding the American people back," Clinton said. 
 
 Neither of the living former Republican presidents attended Wednesday's event. In fact, no elected Republican delivered remarks at the 50th anniversary commemoration. George H.W. Bush and his son George W. Bush both opted out, citing health concerns. The latter is recovering from a recent heart procedure. 
 
 Before Obama addressed the throngs gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, civil rights leaders past and present remembered the decades-long movement to secure equal treatment and rights for African-Americans. 
 
 The daughters of two presidents key to enacting the Civil Rights Act were also present: Lynda Johnson Robb and Caroline Kennedy, whom Obama recently nominated as ambassador to Japan. 
 
 Celebrities and entertainers at the event included Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey, who star as husband and wife in one of the summer's hottest movies, "Lee Daniels' The Butler," about life in the White House through the eyes of the (mostly black) hired help. 
 
 Winfrey declared that King had seen injustice and "refused to look the other way." 
 
 "We, too, can be courageous by continuing to walk in the footsteps of the path that he forged," Winfrey said. 
 
 Two musicians who performed at the 1963 march also sang Wednesday. Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey, from the trio Peter, Paul and Mary, sang Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," backed by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, the parents of Trayvon Martin, whose 2012 shooting death sparked a national conversation about race. Mary Travers, the third artist in the group, died in 2009. 
 
 Obama's most personal remarks on race ahead of Wednesday's speech came in the aftermath of the July verdict that found Martin's killer not guilty. 
 
 In the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial, attendees used the occasion to remember where they were when they first heard King's "I have a Dream" speech. 
 
 "I grew up in a segregated environment. I never met a white person till I was a junior in college," said Betty Waller Gray, who traveled to Wednesday's march from Richmond. "It was just so emotional to be here today after knowing where I was in 1963. I was just a kid finishing high school back then." 
 
 Gilbert Lyons, an employee of the National Park Service, attended the original March on Washington half a century ago and heard King utter his famous works in person. 
 
 "I went home with it in my head. I even spoke to my wife about it," he said. "It stayed with me. And the more I heard about Martin Luther King, the more things he was doing, I said, 'this man is great. He is a gentleman that can bring America back to themselves like they're supposed to be.' We're not supposed to be this race and that race. We are Americans." ||||| President Barack Obama led civil rights pioneers Wednesday in a ceremony for the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech roused the 250,000 people who rallied there decades ago for racial equality. 
 
 President Barack Obama speaks at the Let Freedom Ring ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for... (Associated Press) 
 
 President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, former President Bill Clinton and former President Jimmy Carter arrive at the Let Freedom Ring ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Wednesday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 President Barack Obama speaks at the Let Freedom Ring ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for... (Associated Press) 
 
 Former President Bill Clinton speaks at the Let Freedom Ring ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington... (Associated Press) 
 
 Rep, John Lewis, D-Ga. speaks at the Let Freedom Ring ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Aug. 28, 1963 file photo, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, addresses marchers during his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial... (Associated Press) 
 
 President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama arrive at the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, at the Lincoln Memorial in... (Associated Press) 
 
 Oprah Winfrey speaks at the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) (Associated Press) 
 
 Entertainer Forest Whitaker speaks at the Let Freedom Ring ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington... (Associated Press) 
 
 Audience members wear ponchos in a light rain during the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.... (Associated Press) 
 
 Audience members sing during the benediction for the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.... (Associated Press) 
 
 Children take part in a "freedom ring" bell-ringing ceremony in Trafalgar Square, London, to mark 50 years since Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech in Washington, Wednesday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 People carry civil rights signs as they gather in Washington, D.C. before Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech on Aug. 28, 1963. (AP Photo) (Associated Press) 
 
 Thousands gather at the Washington Monument grounds on Aug. 28, 1963 before marching to the Lincoln Memorial. (AP Photo) (Associated Press) 
 
 Audience members sit in rain for the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, where Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke. President... (Associated Press) 
 
 Final preparations are made for Let Freedom Ring ceremony on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington... (Associated Press) 
 
 A Osprey military helicopter flies by the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2013. Barack Obama, who will speak, was 2 years old and growing up in Hawaii when Martin Luther... (Associated Press) 
 
 Three women who attended previous March's on Washington, from left, Armanda Hawkins of Memphis, Vera Moore of Washington, and Betty Waller Gray of Richmond, Va., (holding sign) listen to the speakers... (Associated Press) 
 
 President Barack Obama speaks at the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. spoke, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles... (Associated Press) 
 
 With Trayvon Martin parents, Sybrina Fulton, and Tracy Martin, and Mark Barden, father of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim Daniel Barden, Peter Yarrow, left, and Paul Stookey, right, of the... (Associated Press) 
 
 Stanley Samuels and Rita Samuels, from Atlanta, Ga., left, and Sammie Whiting-Ellis, from Washington, D.C., who attended the March on Washington 50 years ago where Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke, wait... (Associated Press) 
 
 Singer Deleelah Abdullah performs before children took part in a “freedom ring” bell-ringing ceremony in Trafalgar Square, London, to mark 50 years since Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his "I Have A... (Associated Press) 
 
 A person walks in the rain past the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, during the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. President Barack Obama will speak later Wednesday.... (Associated Press) 
 
 Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton arrive at the Let Freedom Ring ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963... (Associated Press) 
 
 Actor Jamie Foxx speaks at the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. The bell at rear rang... (Associated Press) 
 
 Large crowds gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, where the first black U.S. president spoke just after 1900 GMT _ the same time that King delivered his spellbinding speech. 
 
 The first march was early in the turbulent 1960s, when the South still had separate restrooms, schools and careers for blacks and whites, and racism lingered across the country. In the two years following the march, President Lyndon Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act to outlaw discrimination, and King received the Nobel Peace Prize. 
 
 "There were couples in love who couldn't marry. Soldiers who fought for freedom abroad but couldn't find any at home," Obama said, speaking of that era. "America changed for you and for me," he added later. 
 
 But he pointed to the nation's economic disparities as evidence that King's hopes remain unfulfilled. 
 
 The name of that original march was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. 
 
 Obama has said King is one of two people he admires "more than anybody in American history." The other is Abraham Lincoln. Thousands of people were in attendance in wet weather. 
 
 Two former presidents, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, spoke movingly of King's legacy _ and of problems still to overcome. 
 
 "This march, and that speech, changed America," Clinton declared. 
 
 Carter said King's efforts had helped not just black Americans, but "In truth, he helped to free all people." 
 
 Oprah Winfrey, Forest Whitaker and Jamie Foxx were among the celebrities. 
 
 Winfrey said King forced the nation "to wake up, look at itself and eventually change." 
 
 International commemorations were being held at London's Trafalgar Square, as well as in the nations of Japan, Switzerland, Nepal and Liberia. London Mayor Boris Johnson has said King's speech resonates around the world and continues to inspire people as one of the great pieces of oratory. 
 
 On Aug. 28, 1963, as King was ending his speech, he quoted from the patriotic song, "My Country `tis of Thee" and urged his audience to "let freedom ring." 
 
 "When we allow freedom to ring _ when we let it ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of 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, great God almighty, we are free at last," King said. 
 
 The civil rights leader was assassinated five years later. 
 
 Not everyone at the latest march was celebrating progress. "I thought we would be a lot further along than we are 50 years after hearing King's speech," said John Pruitt, 83, a voter rights advocate who attended the first march as well. 
 
 Organizers of the rally broadened the focus well beyond racial issues, bringing speakers forward to address the environment, gay rights, the challenges facing the disabled and more. 
 
 Whitaker told the crowd it was their "moment to join those silent heroes of the past." 
 
 In an interview Tuesday on Tom Joyner's radio show, Obama said he considers the 1963 march part of his generation's "formative memory." A half-century after the march, he said, is a good time to reflect on how far the country has come and how far it still has to go, particularly after the recent acquittal of George Zimmerman in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager. 
 
 Race isn't a subject Obama likes to talk about in public, but the Martin case is one time he has done so. 
 
 In the interview, Obama also said he imagines that King "would be amazed in many ways about the progress that we've made." He listed advances such as equal rights before the law, an accessible judicial system, thousands of African-American elected officials, African-American CEOs and the doors that the civil rights movement opened for Latinos, women and gays. 
 
 "I think he would say it was a glorious thing," he said. 
 
 But Obama noted that King's speech was also about jobs and justice. 
 
 On Wednesday, King's eldest son, Martin Luther King III, spoke on NBC of staggering unemployment among young black men. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Suzanne Gamboa and Darlene Superville contributed to this report. ||||| EPA/JIM LO SCALZO Students with the Washington Dupont Park Adventist School take part in a 50th anniversary commemoration of Martin Luther King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech on Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., on Wednesday. 
 
 President Obama paid tribute to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Wednesday before throngs of people who descended on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his "I Have a Dream" speech, declaring that "his words belong to the ages." 
 
 King's address, delivered to 250,000 supporters, punctuated the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was a watershed moment for race relations in America that has been remembered in a week-long series of events, which culminated in remarks from President Obama on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial Wednesday afternoon. 
 
 "His words belong to the ages, possessing a power and prophecy unmatched in our time," Obama said of King. "We rightly and best remember Dr. King's soaring oratory that day, how he gave mighty voice to the quiet hopes of millions." 
 
 Pointing to laws, social change, and himself as an example of how far the nation has come since King's speech, Obama was quick to highlight economic disparities between whites and blacks as proof that King's dream hasn't been fully realized. 
 
 But he chided those who dismiss the gains that have been made by the people who marched for civil rights in 1963. 
 
 "On the battlefield of justice, men and women without rank, or wealth, or title, or fame would liberate us all, in ways that our children now take for granted," Obama said. "To dismiss the magnitude of this progress, to suggest as some sometimes do that little has changed, that dishonors the courage and the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years." 
 
 In an interview with PBS Newshour after his speech, Obama said he would continue to push his economic agenda — including early childhood education, an increase in the minimum wage, cutting college costs and spurring the housing recovery — as a way forward in the struggle for equal rights. 
 
 “Where Congress is unwilling to move, we’ll move,” Obama said. 
 
 “Part of what Dr. King talked about, part of what I think we have to get back to, is a recognition that the working man in Arkansas who happens to be white and the black woman in Philadelphia who wants to work but is having a tough time finding a job, that they have things in common. That in fact they can work together.” 
 
 Celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Jamie Foxx were among a list of speakers who addressed a nation that has made great strides in racial equality since King's "dream" speech helped bring about landmark civil rights legislation. 
 
 "Dr. King was the passionate voice that awakened the conscience of the nation," Winfrey told the people in the crowd, urging them to carry on his message. "He challenged us to see how we all are more alike than we are different." 
 
 According to BCT Consulting, the organizers of today's event, there were "give or take 100,000 folks in today's attendance." 
 
 Betty Gray, 67, traveled to Washington from Richmond, Va., for the anniversary of the speech, which she went to 50 years ago. She said she took the NAACP bus for four dollars round-trip 50 years ago and went because her mother was a civil rights activist who was honored by former President Harry Truman for helping sign black people up to vote. 
 
 "It's in my mom's memory that I'm here today," said Gray, who also attended both inaugurations for Obama. 
 
 Occasional rain showers were forecast to hit Washington throughout the day, but the overcast, humid weather didn't deter crowds: Thousands had already packed the National Mall as of early Wednesday morning, NBCWashington.com reported. Some carried umbrellas or were wearing ponchos. 
 
 At one point during the events — amid Leann Rimes' rendition of "Amazing Grace" — a rainbow appeared over the sky. 
 
 As crowds filled the Mall in the shadow of a scaffold-covered Washington Monument — still under repair from an earthquake two years ago — they passed by vendors selling t-shirts, buttons, and bells marking the anniversary. Young and old — kids on summer break, college students and senior citizens — were part of the masses. 
 
 Carlo Dellaverson / NBC News Imogen Hutchinson, 60, left, with her friend, Reba Diggs, 81, at the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. "My parents were scared for King," Hutchinson said. 
 
 Imogen Hutchinson, 60 — born and raised in Alabama as the daughter of a sharecropper — recalled life at the time of the March on Washington. 
 
 "I remember being afraid all the time," she said. "My parents were scared for King." 
 
 Hutchinson's friend, Reba Diggs, 81, has lived in Washington since 1951, but couldn't make the 1963 march because of health reasons. 
 
 "I was determined to come this time," she said. "I am so proud of what Martin Luther King did here." 
 
 Dianne Hardy, 68, from Maryland, had also wanted to come, but said her mother wouldn't let her. 
 
 "She thought the march was threatening," she said. "It's so awesome [to be here today]." 
 
 Carlo Dellaverson / NBC News Peter Sussman, 72, points at a photo of the 1963 march, which he attended. "I'm not an activist, but i feel a great sense of outrage over injustices to other people," he said. 
 
 Peter Sussman, 72, of Berkeley. Calif., had been living in a predominantly white part of Long Island, N.Y., at the time of the march. He had just finished college at the time and upon hearing about the march, "I knew I had to be there." 
 
 "It really was a national convergence like I've never seen," Sussman said. "When I got home, my parents, who didn't think much of me going to the march, were waiting up for me because they knew having seen it on TV that it was a piece of American history that I had just experienced. They wanted to hear all about it." 
 
 Sussman returned to the Mall on Wednesday wearing the same button that was handed out to him 50 years ago, this time confined to a wheelchair due to spine issues. 
 
 "To be here today is a dream of mine," he said. 
 
 Events were planned throughout the day to mark the 50th anniversary, starting with a 9 a.m. interfaith service. Speakers, including various senators and congressmen and NAACP President Ben Jealous, were also part of the commemoration. 
 
 "As we go home today, let us remember that the dreamer was also a doer," Jealous said. "Let us not just be dreamers this day. Let us recommit to being doers." 
 
 Family members of King also spoke. Martin Luther King III, King's son, said his dad "challenged" his supporters to love all other people, regardless of who they were. 
 
 "He often talked about how sometimes we must take positions that are not safe or unpopular ... because our conscience tells us they are right, King III said. 
 
 Christine King Farris, King's sister, described the pride she felt in her brother's legacy. "The dream my brother shared with our nation and the world on that sweltering day 50 years ago continues to nurture and sustain nonviolent activists worldwide and their struggles for freedom." 
 
 Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who witnessed King's speech, was also among those who addressed the crowd on Wednesday. 
 
 "Fifty years ago at this place, at this sacred place, Americans sent a message to their leaders and around the world that the promise of equality, of opportunity, equality before law ... applied to everyone in this country, not just the lucky few of the right color or the accident of birth," he said. 
 
 Peter and Paul, from the singing trio Peter, Paul and Mary, got on stage to sing "Blowin' in the Wind," the 1962 Bob Dylan hit that they had sung in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, turning the song into an anthem for interracial relations. 
 
 Singing it again Wednesday in the same spot 50 years later, they were joined by the parents of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teen whose killing in February of 2012 sparked a national debate on race relations. 
 
 Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter also spoke at the ceremony, which included bell-ringing at 3 p.m. ET — 50 years to the minute after King called for civil rights with the words "let freedom ring." 
 
 "I'm thankful to Martin Luther King Jr. that his dream is still alive," Carter said. 
 
 Clinton thanked those who attended King's march. 
 
 "What a debt we owe to those people who came here 50 years ago," he said, adding that King "urged the victims of racial violence to meet white Americans with an outstreched hand, not a clenched fist." 
 
 About 50 communities and organizations across the U.S. rang bells when the clock struck 3 p.m. 
 
 Tokyo and the Swiss city of Lutry also took part in the bell-ringing, an event organizer told Reuters. 
 
 Former President George W. Bush, who wasn't in attendance, called on the nation to carry on King's legacy in a statement released Wednesday. 
 
 From the Archives: Martin Luther King Jr. looks back on his "I Have a Dream" speech in 1967 and offers a surprisingly blunt assessment of the progress made since that historic day in 1963. King warns of "difficult days ahead" in this extraordinary, long unseen interview with NBC's Sander Vanocur. 
 
 "Dr. King was on this Earth just 39 years, but the ideals that guided his life of conscience and purpose are eternal. Honoring him requires the commitment of every one of us. There's still a need for every American to help hasten the day when Dr. King's vision is made real in every community — when what truly matters is not the color of a person's skin, but the content of their character," he said. 
 
 The country remains deeply divided over how much progress there has been toward racial equality in the half-century since the march. According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, fewer than half of Americans believe "substantial" progress has been made toward King's dream over the last 50 years. Among blacks, fewer than one-in-three say the same. 
 
 However, in other areas such as high school completion, life expectancy and voter turnout, the gaps have narrowed or — in the case of the latter — disappeared entirely. 
 
 Yet Wednesday's commemoration takes place in the waning days of a summer in which various conversations on race relations struck a chord in the national mood. 
 
 In July, Obama delivered personal, unscripted remarks on issues of race after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin. 
 
 And earlier this month in New York City, a federal judge ruled that the controversial "stop-and-frisk" tactic used by police violated the Constitution and amounted to "indirect racial profiling." 
 
 Entertainer and activist Harry Belafonte talks about race relations 50 years ago compared to today. Belafonte also reflects on his friendship with Martin Luther King, Jr., and the March on Washington. 
 
 In addition to the current and former presidents scheduled to speak Wednesday, Rep. John Lewis of Georgia addressed the crowd. Lewis was the youngest speaker at the 1963 march and delivered a speech that admonished the Kennedy administration for doing "too little, too late" for southern blacks. 
 
 Lewis was among the civil rights advocates who spoke out last weekend against the Supreme Court's ruling on voting laws as thousands retraced King's footsteps in an organized march. 
 
 "This moment in our history has been a long time coming, but the change has come. We our standing here in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln, 150 years after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation," Lewis said. 
 
 Lewis described to the crowd how in the 1960s, "black and white people could not be seated together on a Greyhound bus." King's words, he said, "captured the heart of people, not just around America, but around the world." 
 
 "Fifty years later, we can ride anywhere we want to ride," Lewis said. 
 
 The scars of racism still remain deeply embedded in American society, he said, citing Trayvon Martin's case and stop-and-frisk. 
 
 "We must never, ever give up. We must never, ever give in," he said. 
 
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– Some excerpts from today's speeches at the Lincoln Memorial honoring the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, from CNN, the AP, and NBC News. President Obama: "His words belong to the ages, possessing a power and prophecy unmatched in our time. We remember how he gave mighty voice to the quiet hopes of millions." Obama added: "Because they kept marching, America changed. Because they marched, the civil rights law was passed. Because they marched, a voting rights law was signed. Because they marched, city councils changed and state legislatures changed and Congress changed and, yes, eventually, the White House changed." Bill Clinton: "It is time to stop complaining and put our shoulders against the stubborn gates holding the American people back." Jimmy Carter: "I believe we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to the new ID requirements to exclude certain voters, especially African-Americans. I think we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to the Supreme Court striking down a crucial part of the Voting Rights Act just recently passed overwhelmingly by Congress." Rep. John Lewis: "We have come a great distance ... but there are still invisible signs, barriers in the hearts of humankind that form a gulf between us." Oprah Winfrey: "We, too, can be courageous by continuing to walk in the footsteps of the path that he forged." Also today, about 300 churches and schools around the world were ringing their bells at 3pm local time to commemorate the anniversary. A Gallup poll finds that 60% of African Americans think a white person is more likely to get a job over a black person even if they're equally qualified. Only 39% say blacks and whites have an equal chance in such cases.