The history of Obama's nomination

The historical coincidence of Barack Obama formally accepting the Democratic nomination on the 45th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s storied "I Have a Dream" speech has been much remarked upon since Obama clinched on Tuesday night.

But John Lewis may be among the most entitled to draw that parallel.

Lewis, a Georgia congressman backing Obama, was on stage for King's speech in Washington and also spoke that day. One of the heroes of the civil rights movement, he was savagely beaten at the head of the 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., to fight for blacks' voting rights.

On Aug. 28 in Denver, Lewis will see the first African-American nominated for president by a major party.

"It's going to be an unbelievable day, a day of great joy," Lewis said this afternoon on MSNBC. "The dream of Martin Luther King Jr. is being realized."

"Sometimes I feel like shouting for joy, sometimes I feel like crying," Lewis added, wishing aloud that King and other civil rights veterans were still alive to witness history in the making. "We're in the process of laying down the burden of race."