"I have a dream that enough is enough." Martin Luther King's granddaughter's powerful speech.

The nine-year-old granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr has told thousands of gun control activists in Washington that, like her grandfather, she has a dream, too.

In a surprise appearance during the march’s program, Yolanda Renee King stood on stage next to a survivor of the most recent mass school shooting in the US and addressed the crowd.

“My grandfather had a dream that his four little children would not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character,” King told the March For Our Lives crowd.

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Holding the hand of Jaclyn Corin, a 17-year-old student at who survived the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Yolanda Renee King, said: “I have a dream that enough is enough. That this should be a gun-free world. Period.”

The crowd responded by cheering, and the young speaker then commanded them to shout together, “Spread the word, have you heard? All across the nation we are going to be a great generation.”

Yolanda Renee King’s words echoed her grandfather’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which he delivered during a massive march in Washington that became one of the highlights of the US civil rights movement.

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King’s 1963 speech helped galvanise the civil rights movement, which demanded equal rights for blacks in the US and an end to segregation. The 50th anniversary of his assassination by a gunman in Memphis, Tennessee, is April 4.