Right now Rev. Al Sharpton is leading a rally to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream Speech" at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., 47 years ago today. Gathered at Dunbar High School right now, the group expects to wrap up speeches around 1 p.m. and then march five miles to the future site of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial on the Mall.
Sharpton and other civil rights leaders in attendance insist it is not a counterrally to right-wing commentator Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally today at the Lincoln Memorial. But they do have an answer to Beck's claim that he and his followers will "take back the civil rights movement."
"Don't let anyone tell you that they have the right to take their country back," Avis Jones-DeWeever, executive director of the National Council of Negro Women, told the crowd this morning, according to The Washington Post. "It's our country too. We will reclaim the dream. It was ours from the beginning."
To get continually updated reports from the Reclaiming the Dream rally, check The Washington Post's "44" page, and check The Root through Monday for extended coverage, photos, video and more.
Sheryl Huggins Salomon is senior editor-at-large of The Root and a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based editorial consultant. Follow her on Twitter.