civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., used the phrase in his legendary “I Have a Dream” speech, which he delivered during the civil rights march on Washington, DC, to a large crowd stretching between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. In that speech on August 28, 1963, he looked confidently forward to a day when “this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
