Welcome, and thank you all for coming together today.

We have gathered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, this evening to begin the labor movement’s national celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — four days before Barrack Obama, our first African-American President, is to be sworn in for his second term.

President Obama will be sworn in on both the Bible of Abraham Lincoln, the President who freed millions of enslaved Americans in 1863, and on the Bible of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the man who, 100 years later on August 28, 1963, spoke of his dream of economic and social emancipation for his people and for all his fellow citizens of all colors who suffered under the system of segregation and economic inequality that hurt everyone in America.

We are gathered in Philadelphia, which itself provides an important historical context to our struggles.  Right here, in 1776, a 33-year-old Virginia farmer, legislator and slave owner named Thomas Jefferson penned the most famous words of our American Constitution.  This is what he wrote, and I quote:

 “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Those were powerful ideas.  The poetic beauty of Jefferson’s sentences gave inspiration to the founders of American democracy, to those people who sought for themselves life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And this evening, we are here not only to remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his dream, but also he reminded us of why we must never give up our resolve to work for, to organize for, and to vote to ensure that our Republic, our democracy and our dreams always bring us closer to the promise made at the founding of our nation as expressed in those beautiful words from Thomas Jefferson, the slave owner.

In those early days, only white male property owners enjoyed those sacred freedoms, not white women and certainly not the people who labored for Jefferson as slaves, who had no freedom but who were considered property. 

In 1863, Lincoln emancipated America’s enslaved people, but the constitutional freeing of those people did not lift the emotional and economic chains of bondage, nor did the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation immediately change or soften the hearts and minds of those who profited from the economic system of free and enslaved labor.

We cannot name all the thousands of activists and believers and dreamers, names known and unknown, who labored relentlessly before and after the Civil War and into the Twentieth Century to honor the promise of the American Constitution.

It took abolitionists and suffragists.  It took the Great Emancipator.  It took the Dreamer.  It took the civil rights movement.  It took all of them and more to push America closer to the ideas on which it was founded.

And even so, no victory for justice has ever been written in stone.  No progress in the U.S. Constitution -- at the ballot box, in a legislature, or at the bargaining table -- has been safe from a reactionary Supreme Court or a political election, from a policy proposal or legislative action.  Always there is the threat of a rollback.  Always there is the danger that freedoms gained will become freedoms lost.

The tools of our opponents are many -- voter suppression laws, gerrymandering, political attacks like those against women’s rights and immigrant rights, LGBT rights and assaults on the poor, on our youth and on America’s people of color.

But, my friends, within our struggle for the American Dream, for Dr. King’s dream, for your dream and my dream -- within that struggle, within that crucible -- we grow stronger, and we grow together.

Yes, we can celebrate and take pride in how far our country has come.  And, yes, truly, we have come a long way.  And with a coalition of voters made up of people of color, immigrants, women, young people and union members, we re-elected President Obama for a second term.

Sisters and brothers, we have a lot to celebrate, because we demonstrated to America and to ourselves that what unites our coalition in the struggle for equality, justice and a voice on the job is far greater than what divides us.

And yet, while our coalition flexed its collective strength on the national level, we find ourselves under attack.

The threats to the dream of Dr. King -- to our dream of social and economic justice -- come from the halls of Congress, from state and local governments right here in Philadelphia, from Wall Street, and from those afflicted by the politics of division.

In 1961, Dr. King reminded the AFL-CIO that the enemy of the Negro is also the enemy of labor, and the same is true today, only more so.

I believe that every opponent of our justice coalition is, in fact, an opponent of shared prosperity and an opponent of democracy.

If you advocate, legislate or bankroll the passage of laws that suppress the vote of any group of American citizens, you are an enemy of democracy, and you are a destroyer of dreams.

If you want to keep people in the shadows, and exploit their labor for your own profit, if you seek to destroy the dreams of innocent children born in this country to immigrant parents, you are a destroyer of dreams.

If you believe that corporations are people and our republic can be bought by billionaires, you are a destroyer of the dream and promise of American democracy.

If you oppose the right of workers to have a voice in the workplace, you are party to the destruction of the American middle class, and you are a destroyer of hope and of shared prosperity and of liberty and you thwart the pursuit of happiness.

Sisters and brothers, our struggle in America has never been against simple ideas but against entrenched interests who profit from the denial of our rights and liberties.

Our struggle has always been against those who would destroy the dreams of working people, our modest dreams to provide for our families through our own hard work and sacrifice.  And we have never struggled for ourselves alone, but for each other, and for our children and grandchildren.

This year, in 2013, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, we will mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

As we reflect on how far we have come as a nation, we will look around ourselves and see people who are black and white, gay and straight, immigrants, Dreamers, women -- all of us.  And we will be able to see that we have come a long way!

We have come a long way.

In Dr. King’s dream, as he told us 50 years ago, he saw the day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, where the governor’s lips dripped with the words of interposition and nullification, that one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls would join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

That day has come, sisters and brothers.  Our children play together, hand in hand, in Alabama and all across our country.

But as they play together in their classrooms, on their playgrounds and in their neighborhoods, it is likely that their parents watch them play while fretting silently about their struggles to find a good job, or to retire with dignity.

Maybe they worry about their lack of health insurance, or whether there is enough food for the next meal or for the rest of the week.

Some parents fear they may be deported before their children come home from school.

And we all fear we won’t be able to afford a quality education for our little boys and girls.  We worry about asking our children and grandchildren to dream, because we don’t want those dreams to go unfulfilled.

Yes, America has come a long way since August 1963, but the theme of the march in 1963 — “Jobs and Freedom” —continues to be our call today.

We have work to do, sisters and brothers, as we pursue social and economic justice, as we continue the struggle to make real the words of Thomas Jefferson and of Dr. King.

I would like to conclude my remarks this evening by quoting from the book "Where Do We Go From Here?" by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Vincent Harding and Coretta Scott King.

These words were written after 1965 at a time when many in the Civil Rights Movement were discouraged.  Even after the March on Washington and the passage of the 1964 Equal Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, it felt to some people as if the movement had stalled.  The conditions of poverty remained bleak.  Unemployment rates remained high in black communities across America.

As I read these words, I would ask you to think about the movements in which you are a part today.  And, especially, I request that tonight you think about the labor movement.

“First, the line of progress is never straight.  For a period, a movement may follow a straight line, and then it encounters obstacles and the path bends.  It is like curving around a mountain when you are approaching a city.  Often it feels as though you were moving backward, and you lose sight of your goals; but in fact you are moving ahead, and soon you will see the city again, closer by.”

Tonight, let us rededicate ourselves to the struggle to honor the words of our Constitution, to make real the equality of every one of us, to allow every individual in America, every child, to enjoy life and liberty and be free to pursue their own happiness.

Ours may be a difficult road, but we have good company here.  We walk in the footsteps of Dr. King and so many others.

And as we honor his legacy with memory and with action, let us always remember that it’s OK to get tired.  It’s OK to stumble along the road we travel, because we will go on.  We will go on.  And we will overcome.

Thank you and God bless you.  May you all continue to keep your dreams of justice alive, continuing your march down the Justice Road toward the City of Freedom and Shared Prosperity!