Fifty years ago next week, a young University of Chicago student activist took a bus to the nation's capital to take part in the March on Washington.

Now a 71-year-old U.S. senator from Vermont, that same man is reminiscing about what he calls "one of the most memorable and important speeches in the modern history of the United States of America."

In a video produced by his Senate office, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) appears in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in August 1963. Gesticulating to the camera like a museum docent or a college professor, the senator recalls what he saw that day.

"I remember that very well, not by simply seeing it on TV or reading about it," Sanders says, pointing in the direction of the Washington Monument. "I was way, way back there — one of the several hundred thousand people who were here."

(Pictured above: Sanders leading a protest against discriminatory housing in 1962 at the University of Chicago.)

Sanders reflects on the progress the country's made since then — and how far there is to go.

"We have come a long, long ways in a lot of areas in fulfilling some of the visions that this great man had," he says. "But on the other hand, let us not forget for a second that a lot of what he talked about, a lot of his dreams still have not been fulfilled. So we have a lot of work that remains in front of us if, in fact, we are going to fully honor and give respect to this very, very great man."

You can watch the video here: