Fifty years ago next week, Martin Luther King Jr. stood, 18 steps below the statue of Abraham Lincoln, and spoke the dream in his heart to a quarter of a million Americans who had marched to Washington, desperate for change.

Certainly, change came.

Bull Connor no longer holds sway in Birmingham. The National Guard is no longer needed to guarantee safe passage to black students in Little Rock. And the despicable segregation "line in the dust" that George Wallace tried and failed to draw is itself dusty history.

A little more than three months after King's speech, and less than a week after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, President Lyndon B. Johnson seized the moment, using the emotion springing from JFK's shocking death - and his own decades of legislative savvy and relationships - to galvanize Congress.

The result was a bipartisan push for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and despite a southern-state Democrat filibuster, it became the law of the land - a profound and important change.

There's a lot to celebrate on the golden anniversary of King's immortal speech. And there's a lot that should worry Americans greatly.

When it comes to successfully rolling back discrimination, this has been a landmark year in the area of gay rights. It has been an entirely organic political sea change.

Simply put, the will of the country changed, and swept with it the political positions of 80 percent of lawmakers. The speed of the demographic shift was astounding, and so was the about-face of member after member of Congress.

In matters of race, doubtless the most dramatic symbol of progress is President Barack Obama.

By its very existence, his presidency is a symbol of racial equality.

But even now, deep into Obama's second term, old-fashioned racism is poised for a comeback.

On the right, response to his election and reelection has been a Jim Crow-style assault on voting rights. Several states - Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina - have passed voter-ID laws, and limits on polling hours, that can have no other intent than to disenfranchise minorities.

Voter fraud? Spare me. It has been repeatedly documented that fraudulent voting is all but nonexistent. Voter-ID proponents, take the mush out of your mouth and say what you really mean: It's not fraudulent voters but rather legitimate voters of color who are being targeted.

The highest court in the land has chipped in by eviscerating a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.

The Supreme Court's rose-colored view of a post-racial America, where Voting Rights Act protections are passe and no longer necessary, has not penetrated to places like Texas, where, upon hearing of the court's decision, triumphant leaders vowed to immediately implement voter-ID and redistricting plans previously found by federal courts to be discriminatory.

And then there's Congress.

Southern Democrats are now Southern Republicans. I'm not sure that constitutes progress.

One congressman feels comfortable enough in his time capsule to use the term "wetback" in a discussion of immigration reform.

Another says that for every valedictorian "Dreamer," "there's another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they have calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."

Mostly because the political implications of inaction are plain as can be, the immigration-reform issue has been thrust upon Congress this year.

In 1964, thanks to a president who understood every odious instinct the Senate ever had, Congress came up huge on civil rights, meeting the challenge of its day.

Will this Congress meet the immigration challenge? Increasingly, it looks doubtful. The House leadership - and the courage - just isn't there.

Which leads to the uncomfortable question: What progress?

As for the presidency, Obama's own speech on the Lincoln Memorial steps next week will be watched by millions, still desperate for change.

To succeed on civil rights, this administration must ultimately prove itself to be much more than a symbol.

David McCumber is chief of Hearst Newspapers Washington Bureau.