I have a dream… that American voters will revive US democracy this November

On 28 August 2026, a day of blistering heat, several thousand democracy- and justice-loving Americans gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. They then strode to the nearby Martin Luther King Jnr Memorial to honour the original March on Washington that took place 63 years ago to the day.

It was at this march that Dr Martin Luther King Jnr had delivered his legendary “I Have a Dream” speech to 250,000 people.

The backdrop to the 1963 “Jobs and Freedom” March on Washington was segregation, racial inequality and ongoing harsh denial of full political and economic rights for black Americans a century after the end of slavery.

King described parts of the US as “sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression” and declared that “this sweltering summer of the negroes’ legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality”.

King also spoke of the “fierce urgency of now” and how this was “no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilising drug of gradualism”.

Civic activism and political organisation before and after the 1963 March culminated in the passage into law of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

These acts heralded the legal end to segregationist Jim Crow practices, recognised black Americans’ full equality before the law and accorded them full voting rights in American democracy. They didn’t, however, address black Americans’ dissatisfaction with their broad economic conditions.

The focus for the 28 August 2026 March on Washington was “Defend the Vote”. The Reverend Al Sharpton and his National Action Network co-organised this year’s march with Martin Luther King III and his Drum Major Institute, together with other civil and labour rights groups.

“Defend the Vote” became the rallying cry due to attempts of the Trump administration, the conservative-majority US Supreme Court and Republican-led states to suppress the vote.

The White House’s disenfranchising efforts include rigging or gerrymandering the boundaries of voting districts, denying participation, stiffening voter ID requirements, limiting mail-in ballots, restricting early voting and reducing the number of polling sites.

The Trump administration is also trying to interfere with the management of elections, a process that the US constitution expressly assigns to states, not the federal government.

Before the march, Sharpton stressed that this year’s march was not a commemoration of the 1963 march, but a call to further action: “The marches in 1963 and now are showing the problem, then you go and organise around the problem. This is not just an event, it’s the kick-off to a summer and fall of organising around the midterm elections.”

In a passionate speech at the march itself, Sharpton lamented the recent supreme court decision in Louisiana v Callais, calling it “a bullet in the heart of voting rights”. This decision gutted section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, meaning that race need no longer be considered in the drawing of congressional district lines. Black representation in Congress will now be reduced, likely by well over a dozen seats.

Sharpton continued: “They can turn back the clock, but they cannot turn back time. And if we go home and organise like they did after August 29 1963, we can put a handicap on the most biased, bigoted presidency that we’ve seen in a long time.”

As he stood before the now-drained and still-covered Reflecting Pool by the Lincoln Memorial, Sharpton commented: “They’re trying to find something wrong with our reflections. They don’t want us to reflect. That’s why they’re taking black history out of schools. They don’t want us to reflect. That’s why they’re taking our names and pictures down at the Pentagon. They don’t want us to reflect. Because they don’t want to see that despite slavery and economic exploitation and segregation, we rose and became president of the United States.”

King’s only grandchild and the daughter of Martin Luther King III, 18-year-old Yolanda Renee King, reminded Americans that “a dream without work is just a wish” and that “freedom is not a spectator sport. You cannot watch democracy from the sidelines. You cannot scroll your way to justice. You can’t just repost your way to freedom. You cannot just wait for somebody else to save democracy that belongs to you.”

She then quoted Coretta Scott King, her grandmother: “Every generation has to earn it, every generation has to win it… Now the baton is in our hands.”

Others in the line-up of speakers included congressional leaders such as house minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, senator Bernie Sanders (who had attended the 1963 March as a college student) and representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; governors like Abigail Spanberger; educators like Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers; and Jewish, Muslim and other faith leaders.

Yes, there were too many speakers. The organisers clearly wanted to be as inclusive as possible and didn’t say “no” to anyone.

Most speakers also took too long when they addressed the assembled crowd, sending many attendees to the shade of nearby trees and others to head home prematurely.

Yet the range of speakers was gratifying. As was the diversity of the attendees. They reflected the appealing, big, messy tent that is the Democratic Party.

I prefer this America, pluralistic and cacophonous, rather than the sanitised, white-majority America that Donald Trump and MAGA are trying to recreate.

I couldn’t help thinking of the dreams that Martin Luther King Jnr enunciated for America, specifically the one where he hoped his four small children would “one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character”.

The marchers last Friday modelled this aspiration of his for America. The wide range of people were friendly, joyous and respectful – even as they broiled under the midday sun. And they were unified in their purpose.

The fight for equality is incomplete. Democrats must work hard to secure overwhelming Democratic electoral victories this November. The results must be so large that they are uncontestable and thus “too big to steal”. Americans have agency to once again help “make real the promise of democracy”, in King’s words from 28 August 1963. DM