In his "I Have a Dream" speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. proclaimed, "There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality." Nearly sixty years later, especially after the 2020 police murder of George Floyd and the current racial reckoning, we know that the horrors of police brutality and misconduct are still deeply institutionalized and widespread. We know that police departments still perpetuate racism, bigotry, and white supremacy. We will not be satisfied until it’s dismantled and justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

We still live in a country that delivers justice for some and most, but not all, and we can’t rest until that is so. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We must never adjust to injustice or inequality. Equality is a shared privilege, which is why the growing demands for equality and justice in recent years have been met with a growing backlash from those with power and privilege. It was true during slavery and Jim Crow, and it is true today during the Black Lives Matter era. Most people don't want others to have access to the social privileges they enjoy, whether consciously or unconsciously, because then it's no longer a privilege, it's equality. The root of inequality is power.

I want young people here and across the country to know and realize that though power is unequal in America, we must use the power we do have to cement the largest protests in American and world history just last year. We must continue to push for legislation, like the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, the Freedom to Vote Act, and the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and build on the hard-earned progress of those who came before us. Justice won’t be delivered for all until we eradicate poverty and demand reparations for long-suffering black Americans, ensure a quality education for all Americans, expand voting rights for all our citizens, and dismantle racism and white supremacy from all systems, institutions, and areas of American life and society, especially the criminal justice system. These are the top civil rights issues of our time.

All American citizens being treated equally by law enforcement and having an unbiased justice system that is fair and equal to all is a grand part of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream and vision for America, and it should be yours too. I want young people to be reminded of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s message that change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

So I hope every young person in the audience and watching around the country today commits their lives, just like Martin Luther King, Jr., to his unfinished work and dream, the grand idea of progress, and pledges to become involved in activism, social justice, and changing the world not for some or most, but all. I hope you dedicate your lives to making the rough places plain and the crooked places straight. Always know that your efforts matter, that even one person can change the world, and that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. Know that true peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.