I Have a Dream
King's 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial — the central reference text of the American civil rights movement.
Origin
Martin Luther King Jr. delivered 'I Have a Dream' on August 28, 1963 to roughly 250,000 people at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The 'I have a dream' refrain was largely improvised — King had set aside his prepared text after the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson called out 'Tell them about the dream, Martin.' The speech ends with the line 'free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.'
Modern usage
The most quoted American speech of the 20th century. 'I have a dream that one day…' is a fixed rhetorical template, sometimes echoed reverently, sometimes parodied. Lines about character vs the color of skin are claimed by left and right alike, often selectively. King's broader 1963 'Letter from Birmingham Jail,' written from a cell to white clergymen who urged him to slow down, is the more theoretically detailed companion text.
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