D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray spoke this morning at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial. As his did at Saturday’s celebration, he once again called for all Americans to demand statehood for D.C. and full representation for the city’s residents. Read his full speech below.

On behalf of the 632,000 residents of the District of Columbia, allow me to welcome you to our nation’s capital. Fifty years ago today in his timeless “I Have A Dream Speech,” Dr. [Martin Luther] King borrowed a lyric from one our favorite patriotic songs: “From every mountain side, 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 mole hill of Mississippi. There was one place that Dr. King didn’t mention in that speech, but about which he later spoke out forcefully, and that was the District of Columbia. That’s because full freedom and democracy were and are still denied to the people who quite literally live within the 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 dollars in federal taxes, but don’t even get the final say in how we spend our own locally raised money. And we send our sons and our daughters to fight for democracy overseas, but don’t get to practice it fully here 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 ask, I implore, I hope that all of you will stand with me when I say that we must let freedom ring from Mount St. Alban, from where rises the majestic National Cathedral. We must let freedom ring from the ridges of Anacostia, where Frederick Douglass made his home. And most of all, we must let freedom ring from Capitol Hill itself until all of the residents of the very seat of our great democracy are truly free. Again, let me welcome you to our nation’s capital, the District of Columbia. Please join hands with us and make every American free, especially those who live in the District of Columbia.