The most iconic image of the civil rights movement is, without a doubt, the 1963 March on Washington. The marchers brought hundreds of thousands of African-Americans to the nation’s capital to end segregation. But the march was less about a new, racially-inclusive society and more about changing America from the inside out. Organizers wanted to turn the government’s response to the protest into a national issue. They wanted to challenge a system that seemed to be immovable. They wanted to take up leadership. That would mean challenging racism and changing the very structure of American society. The marchers’ demands were: “We want equal rights. We want the right to vote. We want freedom to live where we want to live. We want jobs. We want an equal chance to develop our talents.” Martin Luther King Jr. wanted an equal chance to develop his talent, too, so he wrote a stirring speech. The address, dubbed “I Have a Dream,” became an anthem for the civil rights movement. It’s a beautiful and powerful speech, but it’s also a speech of ideas. What does equality mean? How can we achieve equality? That’s the job of the American Dream speech. And so Martin Luther King Jr. took a step back from the civil rights movement, and focused his energy on that challenge. He wrote a speech about the American Dream that his audience would be able to relate to. And he delivered the speech, and the response was overwhelming. In less than a year, the civil rights movement was not just a single march, but a national conversation about what equality means. Martin Luther King Jr. focused on equality because he believed that equality is the only path to realizing the American Dream. That may seem intuitive. Of course we should all have an equal shot at the American Dream! But Martin Luther King Jr. had another insight about what it means to have equality in America. America’s founding documents call us to see the government as a “nation of equals.” But that’s not enough. America is an idea as much as a place. And the American idea is that all men are created equal. And that idea is what Martin Luther King Jr. dedicated himself to making real. That notion that our national idea is rooted in equality, justice, and liberty is at the heart of our civic myth. The founders knew this as well. That’s why the American Dream Speech that Martin Luther King Jr. gave on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial is about so much more than a man’s rights and a vote. Martin Luther King Jr. knew what it means to fight for the American Dream. Martin Luther King Jr. knew that you have to fight for something more than your own rights and vote. You have to fight for equality. And for all the ways that our society has lagged behind Martin Luther King Jr.’s version of the American Dream, the battle for equality has only just begun. Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t just understand equality in America, he lived it. And he still inspires us to make our dreams more than just possible: he inspires us to make our dreams possible. The National Security Agency is responsible for intercepting telephone calls, emails, and other types of data sent over fiber-optic and other broadband cables around the world. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, made up of federal judges, is supposed to oversee and limit this massive data collection. And from the beginning, civil libertarians have suspected that this court is not an impartial judge of the issues of privacy and security. It has a reputation for rubber stamping the government’s requests. And so the Electronic Frontier Foundation has asked a judge to open an investigation. The group wants to know if the FISC judges are impartial or have been pressured by the Department of Justice. Today Judge Reggie Walton of the FISC issued a statement that the issue of judicial oversight of the intelligence court is, well, under investigation. It reads in part, “On May 23, 2013, the Court issued an order in which it discussed matters relating to the alleged unauthorized disclosure to the media of information contained in applications to the Court for orders authorizing the interception of certain communications. The following day, a newspaper reported that information from an FISC order had been leaked. The newspaper reported that a copy of the order had been sent by the government to a group of civil liberties lawyers for purposes of ‘educating’ them on how the court operates. The newspaper quoted ‘a person familiar with the investigation’ as saying that the leak was ‘an intelligence community matter.’ […] It is possible that individuals within the intelligence community were responsible for the leak of classified information.” [Judge Reggie Walton] The Electronic Frontier Foundation has sent a letter to Walton asking that the court investigate whether there have been any other unauthorized disclosures or whether information gathered from warrants or other government documents have been leaked. But this is the first time any federal judge has acknowledged an investigation into whether the court’s own actions are being reviewed by a separate court. And this raises another important question: who will get the investigation rolling? Will the court open its investigations into the court itself, the surveillance court, or both? Stay tuned. Muhammad Ali, who died yesterday at 74, was a fighter in all the ways Martin Luther King Jr. was a fighter. Like Dr. King, Ali brought his gift of rhetoric to bear in his fight for equality. Ali was also a fighter for civil rights. He was arrested over 30 times during the fight for racial equality and won three trials because of racism in his criminal justice system. Like Dr. King, Ali fought against intolerance and racism. And Muhammad Ali was a fighter for change. Ali believed in and brought change through his art. It’s one of the reasons he’s such an iconic American hero. And Muhammad Ali wasn’t afraid to make political speeches. He’s considered by many to be a civil rights leader and one of the greatest, if not the greatest, political orator of our time. But Muhammad Ali wasn’t a politician. He wasn’t speaking to solve some policy problem. He was speaking to solve a problem in the hearts of his people, and to inspire them to demand change. As Dr. King used his art to change minds, Muhammad Ali used his words to change hearts. He used his art to inspire us all. Like Dr. King, he spoke the language of the people. And his language was about equality, unity, and change. But unlike Dr. King, Muhammad Ali’s art was not always about Dr. King’s America. Ali’s political speeches came from a different kind of struggle than Dr. King’s. And it’s this difference that makes Muhammad Ali a bigger, more important, and more iconic American hero. Ali fought for changes that Dr. King couldn’t. Ali used his art to unite people from all walks of life. Ali spoke to the people from the bottom up. He united all of us in his struggle for change. That might be because Ali came from the bottom. He had no formal education. He didn’t go to college. He didn’t study or read literature. He learned about poetry and rhetoric, and those experiences forged his artistic style. In one famous speech, Ali says, “Poetry is what I feel, thought and dream, but it has to be put into words and thoughts, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to communicate to nobody.” That’s poetry, but it’s not the poetry of Martin Luther King Jr. or Walt Whitman or Toni Morrison. It’s poetry that connects to the common people, and he gave that poetry a new life by speaking it. And Ali’s speeches didn’t just move crowds. They moved a nation. That’s why his name is one of the most recognizable in our country. That’s why the American people know Ali’s name the way they know Dr. King’s.