Today we celebrate the life of one of the most famous men in history. A man who stood against the injustice of his day and fought for equal rights for everyone. You can see the I Have a Dream Speech here.

“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.'”

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

“From every mountainside, let freedom ring. When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he said.

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.”

Other famous lines attributed to King, as shared by infoplease.com, include:

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” (Strength to Love speech, 1963)

“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” (Strength to Love speech);

King was shot at 6:01 p.m. April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. He had been supporting striking sanitation workers.

James Earl Ray was convicted of the crime, though there have been disputes and allegations of a conspiracy since then.

In his last speech, delivered the night before his assassination, King said he just wanted “to do God’s will.”

“And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land!” he said. “I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. “