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Good morning, everyone, and on behalf the 632,000 residents of the District of Columbia,
I welcome you to our nation's capital!
Fifty years ago today, in his immortal "I have a dream" speech, Dr. King borrowed a
lyric from one of our favorite patriotic songs -- "from every mountainside, let freedom ring!"
He encouraged Americans to let freedom ring not only "from the snow-capped Rockies of
Colorado" and "the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania," but also "from Stone Mountain
of Georgia" and "every hill and molehill of Mississippi."
There was one place that Dr. King didn't mention in that speech, but about which he later spoke
out forcefully: the District of Columbia.
That's because full freedom and democracy were -- and are -- still denied to the people
who literally live within sight of the Capitol dome.
Our city is home to more residents than the states of Vermont and Wyoming, but we have
no voting representative in our own Congress.
We pay more than $3.5 billion a year in federal taxes, but don't even get the final say over
how we spend our own locally-raised revenues.
And we send our sons and our daughters to fight for democracy overseas, but don't get
to practice it fully at home.
So, today, as we remember those who gave so much half a century ago to extend the blessings
of liberty to all Americans, I hope you will stand with me when I say that we must allow
freedom to ring from Mount St. Alban, where rises the majestic National Cathedral.
We must allow freedom to ring from the ridges of Anacostia, where Frederick Douglass made
his home.
And -- most of all -- we must allow freedom to ring from Capitol Hill itself, until all
of the residents of the very seat of our great democracy are truly free!
Again, welcome to the District of Columbia. Let freedom ring in D.C.!
Thank you.