Via Andrew Hazlett'salways-great Twitter feed comes this sory of how Martin LutherKing, Jr. finished his spectacular "I Have a Dream Speech" in thewee hours of the day he delivered it on August 28, 1963. No, thiswas not your typical all-nighter, for sure. Here's how the scholarsbehind Stanford's online encyclopedia on King and "the globalfreedom struggle" explain it:
King continued to give versions of this speech throughout 1961and 1962, then calling it SThe American Dream. Two months beforethe March on Washington, King stood before a throng of 150,000people at Cobo Hall in Detroit to expound upon making Sthe AmericanDream a reality (King,�A Call,�70). Kingrepeatedly exclaimed, SI have a dream this afternoon(King,�A Call, 71). He articulated the words of theprophets Amos and Isaiah, declaring that Sjustice will roll downlike waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream, for Severyvalley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be madelow (King,�A Call,�72). As he had done numeroustimes in the previous two years, King concluded his messageimagining the day Swhen all of God"s children, black men and whitemen, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able tojoin hands and sing with the Negroes in the spiritual of old: Freeat last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!(King,�A Call,73).
As King and his advisors prepared his speech for the conclusionof the 1963 march, he solicited suggestions for thetext.�ClarenceJones�offered a metaphor for the unfulfilledpromise of constitutional rights for African Americans, which Kingincorporated into the final text: SAmerica has defaulted on thispromissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned(King,�A Call,�82). Several other drafts andsuggestions were posed. References to Abraham Lincoln andthe�EmancipationProclamation�were sustained throughout the countlessrevisions. King recalled that he did not finish the complete textof the speech until 3:30 A.M. on the morning of August 28.
Here's video of the speech:
And here'sa link to the great "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," whichremains one of the great statements of American politicaldiscourse.
The Nation's Chris Hayes reminds us via his Twitter feed that Kingwrote an annual essay on civil rights for The Nation between 1961and 1966. You canread them here.
And read Damon Root's essay about "a forgotten civil rights hero,"T.R.M. Howard, who followed a very different path than King's buthad a profound influence on civil rights discourse.
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