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Today, the US Congress will hold a special joint service in the Capitol Rotunda to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Congressman Scott spoke on the floor on Monday to commemoration Dr. King. The text of Congressman Scott’s floor speech from the Congressional Record is included below:

COMMEMORATING THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ASSASSINATION OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. -- (House of Representatives - April 01, 2008)

Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. 
    Mr. Speaker, today, we gather to pay tribute and to recognize an extraordinary life on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 
    Mr. Speaker, in the book of Genesis in the 37th chapter, in the 19th verse, it says these words: Lo, here cometh the dreamer. Let us slay him and then we shall see what will become of his dream. 
    I think that is a most fitting way to enter my remarks this afternoon about Dr. King, for his was truly a dream, but that dream was built on three strong pillars. One was public accommodations. The other was voting rights. But the other, and perhaps the tougher, was economic rights, how do we get the lever to make the dream a reality. Dr. 
    King knew full well it didn't matter if we could sit anywhere on the bus if we don't have money to get on the bus. It doesn't matter if we could live anywhere we wanted if we didn't have money to buy the house and to keep the house. 
    So, as we reflect today on that economic right, it is so fitting that so much is still to be done. For as we look at the front page of the New York Times yesterday, we find that there are more people who are on food stamps percentage-wise in this country than 40 years ago when Dr. King died. What has happened to his dream after he was slain? 
    It's so fitting that if we start to think for a moment what Dr. King was doing in those moments and hours before his death. He was grappling with the economic question, moving back and forward from Washington, D.C., to Atlanta, Georgia, to Memphis, dealing with the poor people's campaign, the war on poverty, and, most significantly, dealing with the most basic of economic rights, a livable wage for jobs for the sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. 
    And so he knew that the work had not been done. His prophetic words, as Chairman Conyers referred, it's almost as if he was preaching his own funeral when he said he had reached the mountaintop and had looked over and seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And all the threats that were on his life, it was as if he knew that the bullet in 24 hours was out there waiting for him. 
    And he said in his immortal words: I fear no man, for mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. 
    So, as we gather here, let us understand that that dream is still not the reality; although the pillars that he planted, part of them are. It is the tough bucket of the economic issues that we are grappling with on the floor of this House of Representatives as we speak, keeping people in their homes, getting people so they can work and have employment and jobs, opening up the economic system so that people will have businesses and participate in a livable way. 
    So, as we reflect, let us remember those words from Genesis: Lo, here cometh the dreamer. Let us slay him and then we shall see what will become of his dream. 
    We in this House of Representatives can make that dream a reality by finishing that final plank, the economic plank. 

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