Today is the day set aside to honor Rev Martin Luther King, Jr. It is also the day our president is sworn in. But did you know that on August 28, 1963 in Washington, D.C.Martin Luther King presented in his address at the March on Washington some words that would become famous....and become known as his "I Have A Dream Speech.
"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." – Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream Quote
"The "I Have a Dream" speech was a 17-minute public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered on August 28, 1963, in which he called for racial equalityand an end to discrimination. The speech, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. The speech was delivered to over 200,000 civil rights supporters and was ranked as the top American speech of the 20th century by a 1999 poll of scholars of public address. According to U.S. Representative John Lewis, who also spoke that day as the President of the Student 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." Did you know that the "I Have a Dream" speech was originally titled "Normalcy, Never Again." and the first drafts never included the phrase "I have a dream". He had first delivered a speech incorporating some of the same sections in Detroit in June 1963, when he marched on Woodward Avenue with Walter Reuther and the Reverend C. L. Franklin, and had rehearsed other parts. The popular title "I have a dream," came from the speech's greatly improvised content and delivery. Near the end of the speech, famous African American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson shouted to Dr. King from the crowd, "Tell them about the dream, Martin." Dr. King stopped delivering his prepared speech and started "preaching", punctuating his points with "I have a dream." I grew up during this era of separation and remember all the turmoil that took place when desegregation began occurring. I grew up in a house where we loved all of our neighbors....not just the ones who were just like us. I grew up in a family that did not ever own slaves....and were in fact themselves indentured servants and share-croppers. I ask you today....why must we look at another person and not see past the color of their skin? Fifty years later....we still do not judge a man by the content of his character alone....maybe this year....it will be different.
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