All of the proceeds of the sale of this artwork will go to the Black Lives Matter movement, in memory of George Floyd. On August 28, 1963, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place. A. Philip Randolph led off the day, closing his speech with the promise that “We here today are only the first wave. When we leave, it will be to carry the civil rights revolution home with us into every nook and cranny of the land, and we shall return again and again to Washington in ever growing numbers until total freedom is ours.” On that famous day, departing from his prepared notes, Martin Luther King launched into the most famous part of his speech: “And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.” From there, he built to his dramatic ending, in which he announced the tolling of the bells of freedom from one end of the country to the other.
“And when this happens…we will be able to speed up that day when all 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!’”