History has a way of placing events beside one another that, at first glance, seem unrelated. September 4 is one of those dates.

On August 28, 1963, a quarter of a million people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to insist that America honor promises it had written into its founding documents but repeatedly denied to Black citizens. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave that demand its most enduring language. But the day was never only about a dream.