Beginning with a reference to theEmancipation Proclamation, which declared millions of slaves free in 1863,[5] King said: "one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free".[6] Toward the end of the speech, King departed from his prepared text for an improvisedperoration on the theme "I have a dream". In the church spirit,Mahalia Jackson lent her support from her seat behind him, shouting, "Tell 'em about the dream, Martin!" just before he began his most famous segment of the speech.Taylor Branch writes that King later said he grasped at the "first run of oratory" that came to him, not knowing if Jackson's words ever reached him.[7]Jon Meacham writes that, "With a single phrase, King joinedJefferson andLincoln in the ranks of men who've shaped modern America".[8] The speech was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century in a 1999 poll of scholars of public address.[9] The speech was described by journalist Sean O'Grady inThe Independent as having "a strong claim to be the greatest in the English language of all time".[10]
King had been preaching about dreams since 1960, when he gave a speech to theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called "The Negro and the American Dream". This speech discusses the gap between theAmerican dream and reality, saying that overtwhite supremacists have violated the dream, and that "our federal government has also scarred the dream through its apathy and hypocrisy, its betrayal of the cause of justice". King suggests that "It may well be that the Negro is God's instrument to save the soul of America."[12][13] In 1961, he spoke of the civil rights movement and student activists' "dream" of equality—"the American Dream ... a dream as yet unfulfilled"—in several national speeches and statements and took "the dream" as the centerpiece for these speeches.[14]
On November 27, 1962, King gave a speech at Booker T. Washington High School inRocky Mount, North Carolina. That speech was longer than the version which he would eventually deliver from the Lincoln Memorial. And while parts of the text had been moved around, large portions were identical, including the "I have a dream" refrain.[15][16] After being rediscovered in 2015,[17] the restored and digitized recording of the 1962 speech was presented to the public by the English department ofNorth Carolina State University.[15]
King had also delivered a speech with the "I have a dream" refrain in Detroit, in June 1963, before 25,000 people in Detroit'sCobo Hall immediately after the 125,000-strongGreat Walk to Freedom on June 23, 1963.[18][19][20] Reuther had given King an office at Solidarity House, theUnited Auto Workers headquarters in Detroit, where King worked on his "I Have a Dream" speech in anticipation of the March on Washington.[21] Mahalia Jackson, who sang "How I Got Over",[22] just before the speech in Washington, knew about King's Detroit speech.[23] After the Washington, D.C. March, a recording of King's Cobo Hall speech was released by Detroit'sGordy Records as an LP entitledThe Great March To Freedom.[24]
The March on Washington Speech, known as "I Have a Dream Speech", has been shown to have had several versions, written at several different times.[25] It has no single version draft, but is an amalgamation of several drafts, and was originally called "Normalcy, Never Again". Little of this, and another "Normalcy Speech", ended up in the final draft. A draft of "Normalcy, Never Again" is housed in the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection of theRobert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center and Morehouse College.[26] The focus on "I have a dream" comes through the speech's delivery. Toward the end of its delivery, King departed from his prepared remarks and started "preaching" improvisationally, punctuating his points with "I have a dream." In the church spirit,Mahalia Jackson lent her support from her seat behind him, shouting, "Tell 'em about the dream, Martin!" just before he began his most famous segment of the speech.Taylor Branch writes that King later said he grasped at the "first run of oratory" that came to him, not knowing if Jackson's words ever reached him.[7]
The speech was drafted with the assistance ofStanley Levison andClarence Benjamin Jones[27] inRiverdale, New York City. Jones has said that "the logistical preparations for the march were so burdensome that the speech was not a priority for us" and that, "on the evening of Tuesday, Aug. 27, (12 hours before the march) Martin still didn't know what he was going to say".[28]
Speech
I still have a dream, a dream deeply rooted in the American dream – one day this nation will rise up and live up to its creed, "We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream ...
Widely hailed as a masterpiece ofrhetoric, King's speech invokes pivotal documents in American history, including theDeclaration of Independence, theEmancipation Proclamation, and theUnited States Constitution. Early in his speech, Kingalludes toAbraham Lincoln'sGettysburg Address by saying: "Five score years ago ...". In reference to theabolition of slavery articulated in the Emancipation Proclamation, King says: "It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity."Anaphora (i.e., the repetition of a phrase at the beginning of sentences) is employed throughout the speech. Early in his speech, King urges his audience to seize the moment; "Now is the time" is repeated three times in the sixth paragraph. The most widely cited example of anaphora is found in the often quoted phrase "I have a dream", which is repeated eight times as King paints a picture of an integrated and unified America for his audience. Other occasions include "One hundred years later", "We can never be satisfied", "With this faith", "Let freedom ring", and "free at last". King was the sixteenth out of eighteen people to speak that day, according to the official program.[30]
Among the most quoted lines of the speech are "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!"[31]
According to US representativeJohn Lewis, who also spoke that day as the president of theStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, "Dr. King had the power, the ability, and the capacity to transform those steps on the Lincoln Memorial into a monumental area that will forever be recognized. By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he informed not just the people there, but people throughout America and unborn generations."[32]
King waves to the crowd after delivering the speech.
The ideas in the speech reflect King's social experiences of ethnocentric abuse, mistreatment, and exploitation of black people.[33] The speech draws upon appeals to America's myths as a nation founded to provide freedom and justice to all people, and then reinforces and transcends those secular mythologies by placing them within a spiritual context by arguing that racial justice is also in accord with God's will. Thus, the rhetoric of the speech provides redemption to America for its racial sins.[34] King describes the promises made by America as a "promissory note" on which America has defaulted. He says that "America has given the Negro people a bad check", but that "we've come to cash this check" by marching in Washington, D.C.
The final passage from King's speech closely resemblesArchibald Carey Jr.'s address to the1952 Republican National Convention: both speeches end with a recitation of the first verse of "America", and the speeches share the name of one of several mountains from which both exhort "let freedom ring".[12][35]
King is said to have used portions of SNCC activistPrathia Hall's speech at the site of Mount Olive Baptist, aburned-down African-American church inTerrell County, Georgia, in September 1962, in which she used the repeated phrase "I have a dream".[36] The church burned down after it was used for voter registration meetings.[37]
The speech in the cadences of asermon is infused with allusions to biblical verses, includingIsaiah 40:4–5 ("I have a dream that every valley shall be exalted ..."[38]) andAmos 5:24 ("But let justice roll down like water ..."[39]).[2] The end of the speech alludes toGalatians 3:28: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus".[40] He also alludes to the opening lines ofShakespeare'sRichard III ("Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer ...") when he remarks that "this sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn ..."[41]
Rhetoric
King at the Civil Rights March in Washington, D.C.
The "I Have a Dream" speech can be dissected by using threerhetorical lenses: voice merging, prophetic voice, and dynamic spectacle.[42] Voice merging is the combining of one's own voice with religious predecessors. Prophetic voice is using rhetoric to speak for a population. A dynamic spectacle has origins from theAristotelian definition as "a weak hybrid form of drama, a theatrical concoction that relied upon external factors (shock, sensation, and passionate release) such as televised rituals of conflict and social control."[43]
The rhetoric of King's speech can be compared to the rhetoric ofOld Testament prophets. During his speech, King speaks with urgency and crisis, giving him a prophetic voice. The prophetic voice must "restore a sense of duty and virtue amidst the decay of venality."[44] An evident example is when King declares that "now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."
Voice merging is a technique often used by African-American preachers. It combines the voices of previous preachers, excerpts from scriptures, and the speaker's own thoughts to create a unique voice. King uses voice merging in hisperoration when he references thesecular hymn "America".[citation needed]
A dynamic spectacle is dependent on the situation in which it is used. King's speech can be classified as a dynamic spectacle, given "the context of drama and tension in which it was situated" (during the civil rights movement and the March on Washington).[45]
Why King's speech was powerful is debated. Executive speechwriter Anthony Trendl writes, "The right man delivered the right words to the right people in the right place at the right time."[46]
Responses
You could feel "the passion of the people flowing up to him,"James Baldwin, a skeptic of that day's March on Washington, later wrote, and in that moment, "it almost seemed that we stood on a height, and could see our inheritance; perhaps we could make the kingdom real."
The speech was lauded in the days after the event and was widely considered the high point of the March by contemporary observers.[47]James Reston, writing forThe New York Times, said that "Dr. King touched all the themes of the day, only better than anybody else. He was full of the symbolism of Lincoln and Gandhi, and the cadences of the Bible. He was both militant and sad, and he sent the crowd away feeling that the long journey had been worthwhile."[12] Reston also noted that the event "was better covered by television and the press than any event here since President Kennedy's inauguration", and opined that "it will be a long time before [Washington] forgets the melodious and melancholy voice of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. crying out his dreams to the multitude."[48]
An article inThe Boston Globe byMary McGrory reported that King's speech "caught the mood" and "moved the crowd" of the day "as no other" speaker in the event.[49]Marquis Childs ofThe Washington Post wrote that King's speech "rose above mere oratory".[50] An article in theLos Angeles Times commented that the "matchless eloquence" displayed by King—"a supreme orator" of "a type so rare as almost to be forgotten in our age"—put to shame the advocates ofsegregation by inspiring the "conscience of America" with the justice of the civil-rights cause.[51]
TheFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which viewed King and his allies for racial justice as subversive, also noticed the speech. This provoked the organization to expand theirCOINTELPRO operation against theSouthern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and to target King specifically as a major enemy of the United States.[52] Two days after King delivered "I Have a Dream", AgentWilliam C. Sullivan, the head of COINTELPRO, wrote a memo about King's growing influence:
Personally, I believe in the light of King's powerful demagogic speech yesterday he stands head and shoulders above all other Negro leaders put together when it comes to influencing great masses of Negroes. We must mark him now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security.[53]
The speech was a success for theKennedy administration and for the liberal civil rights coalition that had planned it. It was considered a "triumph of managed protest", and not one arrest relating to the demonstration occurred. Kennedy had watched King's speech on television and been very impressed. Afterward, March leaders accepted an invitation to the White House to meet with President Kennedy. Kennedy felt the March bolstered the chances for his civil rights bill.[54]
Some Black leaders later criticized the speech (along with the rest of the march) as too compromising.Malcolm X later wrote inhis autobiography: "Who ever heard of angry revolutionaries swinging their bare feet together with their oppressor in lily pad pools, with gospels and guitars and 'I have a dream' speeches?"[11]
Legacy
The location on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial from which King delivered the speech is commemorated with this inscription.
The March on Washington put pressure on the Kennedy administration to advanceits civil rights legislation in Congress.[55] The diaries ofArthur M. Schlesinger Jr., published posthumously in 2007, suggest that President Kennedy was concerned that if the march failed to attract large numbers of demonstrators, it might undermine his civil rights efforts.[citation needed]
In the wake of the speech and march, King was namedMan of the Year byTIME magazine for 1963, and in 1964 he was the youngest man ever awarded theNobel Peace Prize.[56] The full speech did not appear in writing until August 1983, some 15 years after King's death, when a transcript was published inThe Washington Post.[6]
In 1992, the bandMoodswings, incorporated excerpts from Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech in their song "Spiritual High, Part III" on the albumMoodfood.[57][58]
Also in 1992, rock bandExtreme incorporated parts of the Detroit speech into their song "Peacemaker Die" on the albumIII Sides to Every Story.[59]
Near the Potomac Basin in Washington, D.C., theMartin Luther King Jr. Memorial was dedicated in 2011. The centerpiece for the memorial is based on a line from King's "I Have A Dream" speech: "Out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope."[62] A 30-foot (9.1 m)-high relief sculpture of King named theStone of Hope stands past two other large pieces of granite that symbolize the "mountain of despair" split in half.[62]
On August 26, 2013, UK'sBBC Radio 4 broadcast "God's Trombone", in whichGary Younge looked behind the scenes of the speech and explored "what made it both timely and timeless".[63]
On August 28, 2013, thousands gathered on the mall in Washington, D.C. where King made his historic speech to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the occasion. In attendance were former US PresidentsBill Clinton andJimmy Carter, and incumbent PresidentBarack Obama, who addressed the crowd and spoke on the significance of the event. Many of King's family were in attendance.[64]
On October 11, 2015,The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published an exclusive report aboutStone Mountain officials considering the installation of a new "Freedom Bell" honoring King and citing the speech's reference to the mountain "Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia."[65] Design details and a timeline for its installation remain to be determined. The article mentioned the inspiration for the proposed monument came from a bell-ringing ceremony held in 2013 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of King's speech.[citation needed]
On April 20, 2016, Treasury SecretaryJacob Lew announced that theUS $5 bill, which has featured the Lincoln Memorial on its back, would undergo a redesign prior to 2020. Lew said that a portrait of Lincoln would remain on the front of the bill, but the back would be redesigned to depict various historical events that have occurred at the memorial, including an image from King's speech.[66]
In 2021,Time partnered withEpic Games to create an interactive exhibit dedicated to the speech within Epic's gameFortnite Creative on the 58th anniversary of the speech.[70]
Copyright dispute
Because King's speech was broadcast to a large radio and television audience, there was controversy about its copyright status. If the performance of the speech constituted "general publication", it would have entered thepublic domain due to King's failure to register the speech with theRegister of Copyrights. But if the performance constituted only "limited publication", King retainedcommon law copyright. This led to a lawsuit in 1999,Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc., which established that the King estate did hold copyright over the speech and hadstanding to sue; the parties then settled. Unlicensed use of the speech or a part of it can still be lawful in some circumstances, especially in jurisdictions under doctrines such asfair use orfair dealing. Under the applicable copyright laws, the speech will remain undercopyright in the United States until 70 years after King's death, through 2038.[71][72][73][74]
Original copy of the speech
As King waved goodbye to the audience,George Raveling, volunteering as a security guard at the event, asked King if he could have the original typewritten manuscript of the speech.[75] Raveling, a starcollege basketball player for theVillanova Wildcats, was on the podium with King at that moment.[76] King gave it to him. Raveling kept custody of the original copy, for which he has been offered $3 million, but he has said he does not intend to sell it.[77][78] In 2021, he gave it toVillanova University. It is intended to be used in a "long-term 'on loan' arrangement."[79]
Chart performance
In the wake of King's death, the speech was issued as a single underGordy Records and managed to crack onto theBillboardHot 100, peaking at number 88.[80]
^Echols, James (2004),I Have a Dream: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Future of Multicultural America.
^abAlexandra Alvarez, "Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream': The Speech Event as Metaphor",Journal of Black Studies 18(3);doi:10.1177/002193478801800306.
^abcd"I Have a Dream". The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute. May 8, 2017.Archived from the original on December 4, 2019. RetrievedDecember 4, 2019.
^Hansen 2003, p. 70. The original name of the speech was "Cashing a Cancelled Check", but the aspired ad lib of the dream from preacher's anointing brought forth a new entitlement, "I Have A Dream".
^Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection, 2009 "Notable ItemsArchived December 15, 2013, at theWayback Machine" Retrieved December 4, 2013
^Exploring Religion and Ethics: Religion and Ethics for Senior Secondary Students, p. 192, Trevor Jordan – 2012.
^See David A. Bobbitt,The Rhetoric of Redemption: Kenneth Burke's Redemption Drama and Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
^Alvarez, Alexandra (March 1988), "Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream': The Speech Event as Metaphor",Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3 (pp. 337–357), p. 242.
^Farrell, Thomas B. (1989). "Media Rhetoric as Social Drama: The Winter Olympics of 1984".Critical Studies in Mass Communication.6 (2):159–160.doi:10.1080/15295038909366742.
^"The News of the Week in Review: March on Washington—Symbol of intensified drive for Negro rights,"The New York Times (September 1, 1963). "The high point and climax of the day, it was generally agreed, was the eloquent and moving speech late in the afternoon by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ..."
^James Reston,"'I Have a Dream ... ': Peroration by Dr. King sums up a day the capital will remember",The New York Times (August 29, 1963).
^Mary McGrory, "Polite, Happy, Helpful: The Real Hero Was the Crowd",The Boston Globe (August 29, 1963).
^Marquis Childs, "Triumphal March Silences Scoffers",The Washington Post (August 30, 1963).
^Max Freedman, "The Big March in Washington Described as 'Epic of Democracy'",Los Angeles Times (September 9, 1963).
^Tim Weiner,Enemies: A history of the FBI, New York: Random House, 2012, p. 235
^Karen Price Hossell (December 5, 2005).I Have a Dream. Heinemann-Raintree Library. pp. 34–.ISBN978-1-4034-6811-6.Archived from the original on July 7, 2014. RetrievedApril 28, 2013.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
_-_NARA_-_542015_-_Restoration.jpg)
