George Raveling found himself on stage as Martin Luther King delivered his I Have a Dream speech. Raveling had just finished a career as an All-American basketball player at Villanova. Ahead of him were more than 30 years as a highly successful college basketball coach. But on August 28, 1963, he became forever connected with the civil rights movement when a triumphant King, waving goodbye to an audience of over 200,000 SMarch on Washington participants gave Raveling , then a 24-year-old ex-basketball star and volunteer security guard the original typewritten SI Have a Dream speech. As Pulitzer Prize winning historian David Garrow notes in the August 2003 edition of American History magazine, King had used the SI have a dream phrase in four previous speeches. But to the ears of young George Raveling and to most TV viewers; CBS carried the event live it sounded all brand new. King ended his oration with the unforgettable line: SFree at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last. With sweat pouring out of him, he stepped back, blotted his forehead with a handkerchief, and waved farewell as he headed off the crowded makeshift platform. That"s when Raveling made his move. SI was only about four people off to the side of King, he remembers. SI don"t know what possessed me but I walked up to King and calmly asked Can I have that copy?" Without hesitating he turned and handed it to me. And just as he did a rabbi on the other side came and said something to him, congratulating him on his speech and that was essentially the end of it as far as me acquiring the speech. Of course nobody, including myself, realized that this was going to take on the historical significance that it did. TIME
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