<P> Among the most quoted lines of the speech include "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 . I have a dream today!" </P> <P> According to U.S. Representative John Lewis, who also spoke that day as the president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, "Dr. King had the power, the ability, and the capacity to transform those steps on the Lincoln Memorial into a monumental area that will forever be recognized . By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he informed not just the people there, but people throughout America and unborn generations ." </P> <P> The ideas in the speech reflect King's social experiences of ethnocentric abuse, the mistreatment and exploitation of blacks . The speech draws upon appeals to America's myths as a nation founded to provide freedom and justice to all people, and then reinforces and transcends those secular mythologies by placing them within a spiritual context by arguing that racial justice is also in accord with God's will . Thus, the rhetoric of the speech provides redemption to America for its racial sins . King describes the promises made by America as a "promissory note" on which America has defaulted . He says that "America has given the Negro people a bad check", but that "we've come to cash this check" by marching in Washington, D.C. </P> <P> King's speech used words and ideas from his own speeches and other texts . For years, he had spoken about dreams, quoted from Samuel Francis Smith's popular patriotic hymn "America" ("My Country,' Tis of Thee"), and of course referred extensively to the Bible . The idea of constitutional rights as an "unfulfilled promise" was suggested by Clarence Jones . </P>

I have a dream speech at lincoln memorial