Forty-four years ago this week, the Voting Rights Act of 1965
was signed into law, marking a monumentous moment in civil rights history. Yesterday’s confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor fell on the anniversary of the law’s passage, lending even greater historical resonance to a moment that President Obama celebrated as “breaking yet another barrier and moving us yet another step closer to a more perfect union”.

When recalling the long struggle for civil rights, it is impossible to overlook the actions and words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Perhaps the most widely cited of all King’s addresses is his
famous “I Have a Dream” speech, yet it may also be his most misunderstood. In King’s Dream, now available in paperback,Eric J.
Sundquist elucidates the transformative power of King’s speech
and emphasizes its continuing relevance for contemporary arguments for equality. According to Anthony Lewis of the New York
Times Book Review, Sundquist provides not only detailed cultural context, but also “drama and emotion,
a powerful sense of history combined with illuminating scholarship.” In King’s Dream, “The
[‘I Have a Dream’] speech and all that surrounds it—background and
consequences—are brought magnificently to life.”