Joined by parents Martin Luther King III and Arndrea Waters King, Yolanda King (center) delivers a speech on the 63rd anniversary of her grandfather’s “I Have a Dream.”
On the 63rd anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a coalition of national civil rights organizations, labor unions, faith leaders, organizers and concerned residents protested in defense of the right to vote.
Their action comes just four months after the Supreme Court’s decision to gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, used by voters of color for decades to challenge gerrymandered voting maps that decreased their power in elections.
Under “Defend the Vote” banners, several hundred protesters gathered on Friday, Aug. 28 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the National Mall for a call to action rally in resistance to increasing voter suppression laws and redistricting that are disproportionately impacting Black communities across the country.
Joined by parents Martin Luther King III and Arndrea Waters King on stage, 18-year-old Yolanda King delivered a passionate speech addressing her generation.
“My grandfather was 34 years old when he stood at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 and told America about his dream. I never met him. I never met my grandmother, Coretta Scott King. But I know something they both understood: a dream without work is just a wish.”
“We will restore the dream when voting rights are weakened. We will restore the dream when hatred tries to divide us,” King continued. “And when somebody tells us the problems are too big, the divisions are too deep, the system is too broken and our generation is too young, we will tell them, watch us.”
Speakers continued for over five hours before marching to the Martin Luther King Memorial. Representatives with the NAACP, American Federation of Teachers, National Council of Negro Women, National Urban League, Working Families Party and dozens of other organizations were among the crowd, co-organized by the National Action Network and The Drum Major Institute, a nonprofit run by the King family.
The nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization is litigating nearly two dozen active voting rights cases, fighting voter suppression laws and redistricting while leading voter registration campaigns. Nationally in 2026, lawmakers in 41 states have considered at least 302 restrictive voting bills, according to New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.
“We stand here today, recognizing as many who came 63 years later, that the march is only the gathering point for the work. We must leave here, not celebrating this moment, but energized and inspired to turn out the vote in November,” said Derrick Johnson, NAACP president and CEO, addressing the crowd.
“We recognize that when we vote we win. We recognize that the Black vote is the moral compass of this nation.”
