Frank Ricci, left, lead plaintiff in the New Haven firefighters' reverse discrimination case, speaks to the media outside of Federal Court in New Haven, Conn., on Monday, June 29, 2009. The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the white firefighters were unfairly denied promotions because of their race. (AP)

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Yesterday the Supreme Court handed down the most anticipated decision of its term, finding that white firefighters denied promotion in New Haven, Connecticut, were the victims of racial discrimination.

In doing so, the justices overturned a ruling joined by Federal appeals court judge, and high court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. That alone grabbed a lot of headlines.

But more profound are the questions raised about civil rights law and the future of affirmative action in the United States.

This hour, On Point: the Ricci case, civil rights law, and the future of affirmative action.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guests:

Joining us from Washington is Jess Bravin, Supreme Court correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.

From Chicago we’re joined by Richard Epstein, professor of law at The University of Chicago and author of “Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classic Liberalism” and “Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty with the Common Good.”

And from San Francisco we’re joined by Richard Thompson Ford, professor of law at Stanford University and author of the books “The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse” and “Racial Culture: A Critique.”

In this Aug. 28, 1963, photo Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addresses marchers during his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. (AP)

Great moments in history colliding in Washington this week, echoing off each other, across the years.

On the mall yesterday, a huge crowd before the Lincoln Memorial, opening the celebration of Barack Obama’s inauguration, on the same site where Martin Luther King gave his historic “I Have a Dream” speech in August, 1963.

A new telling of the origins of that speech calls it “national scripture”. But it was not the speech King had prepared. This hour, On Point: the untold story of the “I Have a Dream” speech, and its monumental echo in the nation’s capitol this week.

You can join the conversation. On this Martin Luther King Day, is this the dream, part of it, coming true?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Mike Allen, chief political correspondent for Politico.com.

Eric Sundquist, professor of literature, University of California, Los Angeles. He is author of “To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature.” His new book is “King’s Dream.”

You can read the introduction to “King’s Dream.”

Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley, pastor of the Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, VA. He is a fourth generation Baptist preacher.

More links:

The full text of the speech is available here.  You can watch it on YouTube below:

Supporters of marriage equality demonstrate at Los Angeles City Hall as part of a National Day of Action on Nov. 15, 2008, in response to the passage of Proposition 8, which repeals the right of same-sex couples to marry in California. (AP)

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It is a strange, unsettled moment to be gay in America.

In national politics, an African-American family is headed to the White House, and a civil rights triumph is on parade.

But on the same day Barack Obama was elected president, gay rights were slapped back at the polls in Florida, Arizona, Arkansas and — most of all — California, where gay marriage was banned, rolled back, at the ballot box. Civil rights celebration and stunning sting, all at the same time.

We’re talking today about this moment, with some of those feeling it most acutely.

This hour, On Point: Progress, setback, and this gay moment in America.

You can join the conversation. Listeners, gay listeners, are we headed forward? Or back? What did you make of California’s vote? Florida’s? Arizona’s? Is the gay rights struggle the new — the remaining — civil rights struggle?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from London is Bruce Bastian, co-founder and former chairman of WordPerfect Corporation. He serves on the Board of Directors of Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay and lesbian political action committee in the U.S. His philanthropic foundation, the B.W. Bastian Foundation, supports organizations that embrace the principle of equality. He donated $1 million to the effort (unsuccessful) to block California’s Proposition 8. Raised in a conservative Mormon family in Idaho, he is a graduate of Brigham Young University.

Joining us from Northampton, Mass., is Leslea Newman, a poet and author of books for children and adults. She explores themes of contemporary lesbian life, same-sex couples and their children, and growing up Jewish. Among her many books are “Heather Has Two Mommies” (1989), the first children’s book to portray lesbian families in a positive way and “A Letter To Harvey Milk,” which has been adapted for the stage. Her forthcoming children’s books are “Mommy, Mama, and Me” and “Daddy, Papa, and Me.” She and her wife, Mary, have been together since 1988. They were legally married in Massachusetts on Sept. 10, 2004.

And from Los Angeles we’re joined by Jenny Pizer, senior counsel for Lambda Legal, an organization working for the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, and people with HIV/AIDS. She is helping to lead the constitutional challenge in the courts to California’s Prop 8, in an effort to have it overturne. She was married to her wife in California this past October before the passage of Prop 8.

Martin Luther King Day has a little more heat on it this year than some. From the cauldron of presidential politics has spun the question: who mattered more in the earth-moving civil rights revolution of the 1960’s — Martin Luther King, or Lyndon Baines Johnson?

The preacher or the president? Crazy question, say those who were there. But what an unlikely, high-voltage, interlocking duo this was.

Today we look and listen back on their astounding, high-wire relationship. It still sounds hot.

This hour, On Point: MLK, LBJ, and the civil rights revolution.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Nick Kotz, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of “Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws That Changed America.”

Roger Wilkins, professor of history and American culture at George Mason University, he served as assistant attorney general in the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. He shared the Pulitzer Prize for Watergate coverage in 1972 as a member of the Washington Post editorial page staff.

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When John Hope Franklin was six-years-old in rural Oklahoma, a white railway conductor literally threw this very young black American, and his mother, off the train — when they had the temerity to sit in a whites-only car. That was eighty-four years ago.

Now John Hope Franklin is ninety, and one of the country’s most celebrated historians of the experience of race in America. He has known the country’s highest honors, and its deepest indignities. He wrote the book that dispelled the notion of slavery-loving slaves.

Now John Hope Franklin’s looking with a knowing eye on the challenges of a new century. Hear a conversation with him about history, race, and America now.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

John Hope Franklin, author of “Mirror to America: The Autiobiography of John Hope Franklin.”

David Blight, professor of American History at Yale University.