Martin Luther King, Jr. had a far-reaching impact on American life in his thirty-nine short years of life. In his struggle for racial justice, King became a symbol of Gandhian nonviolence and a vision of an integrated, unified America where the color of a person’s skin was less meaningful than “the content of their character.” Nothing expressed King’s vision, nor the power of his rhetoric, better than his famous ‘I Have a Dream” speech delivered in front of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963.
The speech has entered the American lexicon alongside Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. It has become a statement of America’s need to resolve its issues of race in ways that are inclusive, not separatist, that bring about unity, not division.
For those not old enough to have witnessed the gathering in Washington, it is hard to describe its size and more especially its meaning. Historian Thomas Gentile reminds us that buses pouring south that morning came through the Baltimore tunnel at a rate of one hundred per hour. That same morning twenty-one charter trains pulled in to Washington. A crowd estimated at 250,000 exercised their right to peaceful gathering and free speech at the home of our national government. Not even acts of peaceful civil disobedience marred the event.
Mounted on the eagle’s eye of the Washington Monument, a CBS television camera showed the sea of humanity on each side of the half-mile reflecting pool and along the full base of the Lincoln Memorial. A speaker system announced the death of W. E. B. Du Bois in Ghana the day before. As King prepared to speak, ABC and NBC broke away from afternoon soap operas to join CBS in live coverage.
In cadence and delivery, King preached a sermon as much as he gave a formal speech. He frequently left his prepared remarks and responded to the urgings of the crowd. Mahalia Jackson yelled out “Tell ‘em about the dream, Martin.”
“I say to you today, my friends, and so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.” And so the I had a dream speech took its form and entered the American historical memory.
We often forget that King was the sixteenth out of eighteen people scheduled to speak that day. It is King that we remember. He called on Americans to rise up and live up to our creed that “all men are created equal.”
As we look back on that day and that historic speech, and as we celebrate once more the life of a man who gave his life so we could be a better nation, a more united nation, a less divided people, we could do worse than to recall King’s use of Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
For King that biblical reference provided the ending of his speech as he said:
“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.”
Yes, King’s speech that day was a call for racial equality. It was meant to support President John F. Kennedy’s civil rights legislation. But in many ways it was also a call for national unity, mutual respect for the dignity of all individuals and for a willingness to listen and learn from each other.
Perhaps as we celebrate a great man’s short life, we should reflect on that message that changed the world.
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From the Bible: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28:contact to less than 10 minutes if you can’t stay 6 feet apart or wear a mask.”
