50 years after Martin Luther King Jr. gave his historic speech – Rep. John Lewis  reflects on race in America then and now.  See the entire interview here.

Commemorating the March on Washington has an especially personal element for Rep. John Lewis: he was an original speaker at the 1963 event.

He was chairman of the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee, which led sit-ins and demonstrated for civil rights.

Fifty years later, he says he hopes young people continue to be inspired by the movement's message, so that when they are his age, "they will feel like they have succeeded, that they have become the best that they can be.

"And they will look at an America where the issue of race is gone, that we will lay down - they will lay down the burden of race and we have truly moved toward a multi-cultural, multi-racial, democratic society where no one is left out or left behind because of their race or nationality," he said.