Fifty years after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and declared his dream, America continues to battle for equality and civil rights for all. But we wouldn't be as far along as we are without the struggles that civil rights activists endured through the 20th century.
Here are just some of the events that led up to the historic speech, and the laws that followed to help America "live out the true meaning of its creed" in the timeline below, complete with links, photos, and videos that documented these moments in time: