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Sixty-five Years Later & We Are Still Fighting to Vote

In 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave an historic speech to advocate for the voting rights of African Americans in the United States. Calling the denial of African Americans’ right to vote a “tragic betrayal of the highest mandates of our democratic tradition,” Dr. King laid out what would happen if African Americans could vote. Below are excerpts from his “Give Us the Ballot” speech.