Welcome to the American Story.

Stories about what it is that makes America beautiful and worthy of our love.

This is Chris Flannery with the Claremont Institute.

I call this one the American Dream.

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.

These are among the most well-known words uttered by an American in the 20th century.

To exaggerate a little, every American is familiar with the speech in which they were spoken.

To exaggerate a little more, leaving aside a few history buffs,

no American is familiar with any other American speech in the whole hundred years of the 20th century.

Or to get closer to the truth, even most educated Americans can count on one hand the 20th century American political speeches from which they can recall any words and this would certainly be among them.

The words were spoken of course by Martin Luther King Jr. on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28th, 1963.

King opened his now famous speech with a phrase already familiar to Americans,

five score years ago.

By the number of years, King meant to link his speech with the Emancipation Proclamation,

issued by Abraham Lincoln a hundred years earlier.

The momentous decree, as King said, that came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of

Negro slaves.

But by the familiar biblical language in which he expressed these years, five score.

King connected his speech to the opening of America's greatest speech, the Gettysburg

address.

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent

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