Aug. 28: A key date in history

Updated: August 23, 2008 - 5:22 PM

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Sen. Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention will further cement Aug. 28 as one of the most significant dates in the American civil rights movement:

AUG. 28, 1963: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. "Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning" in the quest for equal treatment of blacks, he said.

Aug. 28, 1955: Emmett Till, a black 14-year-old from Chicago, is brutally killed in Money, Miss. The acquittal of the white suspects helped to spark the civil rights movement. Aug. 28, 2005: Hurricane Katrina continues its deadly damage in southern Louisiana and Mississippi. The storm turned the nation's attention to the wrenching poverty that continues to mark the lives of many blacks. "It's a seminal moment," said Brenda Jones, spokeswoman for Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a leading civil rights figure.

WASHINGTON POST