I Have a Dream

Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering his speech at the DC Civil Rights March.

For other uses, see I Have a Dream (disambiguation).

"I Have a Dream" is the popular name given to the historic public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., when he spoke of his desire for a future where blacks and whites would coexist harmoniously as equals. King's delivery of the speech on August 28, 1963, 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. Delivered to over two hundred thousand civil rights supporters, the speech is often considered to be one of the greatest and most notable speeches in history and was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century by a 1999 poll of scholars of public address. According to U.S. Congressman John Lewis, who also spoke that day as the President of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, "Dr. King had the power, the ability and the capacity to transform those steps on the Lincoln Memorial into a modern day pulpit. By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he informed not just the people there, but people throughout America and unborn generations."

Legend holds that King departed from his prepared text and began preaching extemporaneously, but he had delivered a similar speech incorporating some of the same sections in Detroit in June 1963, when he marched on Woodward Avenue with Walter Reuther and the Rev. C.L. Franklin, and had rehearsed other parts.

Style

Widely hailed as a masterpiece of rhetoric, King's speech resembles the style of a Black Baptist sermon. It appeals to such iconic and widely respected sources as the Bible and invokes the United States Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the United States Constitution. Through the rhetorical device of allusion, King makes use of phrases and language from important cultural texts for his own rhetorical purposes. Early in his speech King alludes to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address by saying "Four score and seven years ago..." Biblical allusions are also prevalent. For example, King alludes to Psalm 30:5 in the second stanza of the speech. He says in reference to the abolition of slavery articulated in the Emancipation Proclamation, "It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity." Another Biblical allusion is found in King's tenth stanza: "No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." This is an allusion to Amos 5:24. King also quotes from Isaiah 40:4 — "I have a dream that every valley shall be exalted..."

Anaphora, the repetition of a phrase at the beginning of sentences, is a rhetorical tool employed throughout the speech. An example of anaphora is found early as King urges his audience to seize the moment: "Now is the time..." is repeated four times in the sixth stanza. 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 when King used anaphora include "One hundred years later," "We can never be satisfied," "With this faith," and "Let freedom ring."

Key excerpts

• "In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'"
• "It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual."
• "The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community, must not lead us to a distrust of all white people. For many of our white brothers as evident by their presence here today have come to realize that their freedom is bound to our freedom."
• "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"
• "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 that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will they be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood."
• "This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day."
• "Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring—when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
• "Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."

Legacy

The March on Washington put much more pressure on the John F. Kennedy administration to advance civil rights legislation in Congress, and in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination later that year, his successor Lyndon B. Johnson was able to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed, followed by the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

In the wake of the speech and march, King was named Man of the Year by TIME magazine for 1963, and in 1964, he was the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 2003, the National Park Service dedicated an inscribed marble pedestal to commemorate the location of King's speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

Similarities to other speeches

Further information: Martin Luther King, Jr. authorship issues

Approximately twenty percent, the last two minutes, of King's historic speech bears a resemblance to a speech delivered in 1952 to the Republican National Convention by Reverend Archibald Carey, a personal friend of King's. Many, however, believe that the similarities are so slight that they do not rise to the level of plagiarism.

Copyright dispute

Because King distributed copies of the speech at its performance, there was controversy regarding the speech's copyright status for some time. This led to a lawsuit, Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc., which established that the King estate does hold copyright over the speech and had standing to sue; the parties then settled. Unlicensed use of the speech or a part of it can still be lawful in some circumstances and jurisdictions under doctrines such as fair use or fair dealing.

External links

• Video of speech on YouTube
• Video of speech on AfricanAmericanHistory.tv
• I Have a Dream Text, Audio, Video from AmericanRhetoric.com
• Text of speech: United States Department of State
• Lyrics of the traditional spiritual "Free At Last"
• SouthCoastToday.com: A read on a 4th, 5th and 6th graders' take on Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech and some audio