Forty-seven years ago, a great American civil rights leader took the stage at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., in what has come to be remembered as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of the United States.

Citing the Emancipation Proclamation, a statement which served as a great beacon of hope for millions facing enslavement and flames of withering injustice, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. announced to 200,000 civil rights supporters, advocates, and allies sharing in the same strive for justice and purpose that although the United States had issued African-Americans a blank cheque of equality and freedom, the true spirit of the society was, in fact, not bankrupt of liberty and integrity, but instead stocked of opportunity.

Sitting in a five-foot-by-eight-foot freezing steel cage cell in the early hours of June 27 with six other people, the government's message of silencing dissent and debate around the G20 was self evident.

Hours before I ended up in the benchless and bathroom-less cell, I was beaten and arrested while covering a demonstration that started when over a 1,000 people were forcibly dispersed from Queens Park -- the one official free speech zone.

Picked up in a mass arrest of non-violent demonstrators in front of the Novotel Hotel -- where the protesters had gone to demand answers from G20 delegates staying there and show support to striking workers, I had police regard my media credentials with contempt.