DENVER--Secretary of State Bill Bradbury warned Oregon’s Democratic delegates that he would probably get emotional Thursday night when he witnessed the first African American man accept the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.

Bradbury attended Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech on the National Mall in 1963, which occurred 45 years ago to this day, and he said the possibility of seeing King’s dream come true was very powerful for him.

“I’m sure you will see tears in my eyes,” Bradbury told the Oregon delegation Thursday morning. “This is pretty emotional because things have finally come full circle.”

Bradbury also talked about his work as an 11-year-old boy canvassing his Pennsylvania neighborhood on behalf of President John F. Kennedy, and he compared the energy and the enthusiasm of Democrats’ support for Obama to that historic election.

“Now 40 years later the same kind of inspiration is going on,” Bradbury said.