“I Have a Dream”: King Delivers Historic Speech at March on Washington
The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom is one of the iconic moments in the history of the civil rights movement. The high point of the march was Rev. Martin Luther King’s now-famous “I Have a Dream” Speech.
The most famous portion of his speech was extemporaneous and not in his prepared speech. While he was speaking, Mahalia Jackson, the famous gospel singer who performed at the march and was on the podium, called out and urged him to “tell about the dream.” Taking the suggestion, King then launched into what is the greatest part of the speech.
The most famous part of the speech follows (with audience reactions noted):
I have a dream (Mhm) that one day (Yes) this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed (Hah): “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” (Yeah, Uh-huh, Hear hear) [applause]. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia (Yes, Talk), the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream (Yes) [applause] that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice (Yeah), sweltering with the heat of oppression (Mhm), will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream (Yeah) [applause] that my four little children (Well) 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. (My Lord) I have a dream today. [enthusiastic applause]
King had actually given the “dream” speech in Detroit in June 1963 and possibly in other speeches. (The Detroit speech is available on record.)
The march fulfilled the dream of civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph who first proposed a march on Washington in 1941, but cancelled it after a dramatic confrontation with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House on June 18, 1941, when FDR promised to issue an executive order prohibiting race discrimination in employment in the defense industries.
Although the March on Washington was immediately recognized as a historic event, President Kennedy, at a meeting with civil rights leaders on June 22, 1963, had tried to discourage civil rights leaders from holding it. And march organizers forced John Lewis, then a leader of SNCC, to remove passages from his planned speech that they thought were inflammatory (see the John Lewis entry on this same day, August 28, 1963).
Read the March Organizing Manual #2: http://www.crmvet.org/docs/moworg2.pdf
Learn more: William Powell Jones, The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights (2013)
See the Official Program for the March:
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/document_data/pdf/doc_096.pdfLearn more about the history of marching on Washington: Lucy Barber, Marching on Washington: The Forging of an American Political Tradition (2002)
Hear King’s “I Have a Dream” speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs
Visit the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, DC: http://www.nps.gov/mlkm/index.htm