I was only five years old the day my father gave his "I Have a Dream" speech before more than 200.000 participants in the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. Even though my daddy was famous, when I was five, my mother, Coretta Scott King, went out of her way to provide my sister Yolanda and me with "normal" childhoods. Therefore, when people talk about that great day, I have no first-hand knowledge of it, but I do know that my father was more than a dreamer and that redeeming the bad check that America had given African Americans was his number one dream.

The glorious dream my father shared with us on August 28, 1963 was not just an exercise in eloquent speechmaking. We need to remember that Martin Luther King, Jr. was first and foremost a minister of action who didn't just talk that beautiful talk. He walked the walk, unbent and unbowed, from Montgomery, Alabama to Memphis, Tennessee, from civil rights to human rights. Be assured that he intended his dream as a challenge to the nation he loved, a challenge we must accept to rise up and live out the true meaning of our creed and make America a beloved community.

Forty years later, we have lots of work to do to create the beloved community of his dream, for despite the progress we have made during the last four decades, people of color are still being denied a fair share of employment and educational opportunities in our society. They still experience incidents of racial violence. Forty years later we have yet to end racial oppression in the criminal justice system. We have yet to end selective prosecution and discrimination in sentencing. And we must abolish racial profiling and the death penalty. Forty years later, we must challenge racial injustice against people of color; we must support social and economic decency for people of all races. Right now in America, 15 million of our white brothers and sisters live below the poverty line. That is an injustice that must also be rectified if we are serious about building the beloved community that my father fought for.

Forty four million Americans have no health insurance, and many millions more have health insurance that doesn't cover serious illnesses. We yet need to establish a health insurance system that covers every person and every illness. Nothing less is acceptable for a great democracy. The terror of unexpected illness must be stopped. We cannot and must not allow history to record that America's greatness was bombing and killing untold innocent women and children to stop terrorism and institute democracy. Air and water pollution are not only important environ-mental issues, but critical health concerns as well. So we must begin globalizing a nonviolent movement to end the poisoning of mother earth.

America's senior citizens who built this country with their sweat and toil are seeing their hard-earned retirement assets being ripped off by corrupt corporations. Our lesbian sisters and gay brothers are still being subjected to persecution, discrimination and violence because of their sexual orientation. Homophobia is a form of fear and hatred that has no place in the beloved community. Human needs are being neglected here at home, while our nation is spending one billion taxpayer dollars every week on the continued military occupation of Iraq. We yet have American who are jobless and under-employed workers. We have millions of people in Africa, Asia and Latin America impoverished by the unjust debt their nations owe to western countries.

African countries, for example, pay 38 percent of their budgets to service this debt, a loss of billions of dollars urgently needed for health care and education. We are here to call on our elected officials to use America's leverage with the international monetary fund and the World Bank to persuade them to cancel the debt of the poorest nations.

The time has come to create a revolution at the ballot box. In the last election, just over 38 percent of eligible citizens went to the polls. This is something we must change, if we want our democracy to serve America's working people, instead of the privileged elites. True election reform must begin with voter turnout, and not with incumbent democrats or republicans, who do not want to be turned out. As my father once said, "the most important step we can take is that short walk to the ballot box." He also said, "a voteless people are a powerless people" – voters must end our powerlessness. Something is very wrong when women, who are 52 percent of the population, are less than 14 percent of the U.S. Congress. This is a major reason why the concerns of women and the needs of children and families are being neglected to subsidize tax-cuts for those with privilege and power. We need more women at the polls in November 2004, but we also need more women on the ballots. So I want to encourage more of our sisters of all races to run for office, and more of our enlightened, progressive brothers to support their campaigns. I must also warn women to not continue to repeat the sins of too many politicians of color. They were successful in changing the color of the elected, but fail miserably in changing the character. In short, sisters, don't make becoming one of the boys your goal, if the boys are not right.

Lastly, we must launch a new era of hope and healing through increased nonviolent activism for social change. Lest we forget, the great crowd that gathered 40 years ago was inspired by the courageous leadership of a relatively small number of activists willing to make the sacrifices necessary to bring greater freedom and justice to America. May we, heirs of this visionary vanguard, have the courage, strength, and wisdom to carry forward the nonviolent struggle to fulfill the dream in the 21st century. With this faith and this commitment, we will witness the birth of a new America and a new world in which people of all races, religions, and nations can live together in peace and harmony as brothers and sisters in the beloved community.