For only the third time in history, the King holiday will coincide with Inauguration Day.

On August 28, 1963, King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, looking out onto the diverse crowd of faces stretching back toward the Washington Monument and positing that America had not yet made democracy real for all of her people. 

“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir,” King said. “It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note. … But we refuse to believe the bank of justice is bankrupt.”