Bynow lots of people know it was Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson who shouted “Tell them about your dream, Martin!” during the 1963 March on Washington.
If it wasn’t for her, one of the most famous speeches in American history might have a lot less famous. And possibly forgotten altogether.
Dr. King’s speech was supposed to turn on the theme of an unpaid promissory note to America’s Black citizens, which he did, in fact, include in his remarks from the Lincoln Memorial that day.
The dream part wasn’t in Dr. King’s prepared text. But Mahalia Jackson and others had heard him speak of it.
He just needed to be reminded of something that was already deeply embedded in his soul. His dream for an America that lived up to the promises of its foundational documents.
Those beautiful words —
I have a dream — have become so famous in the 60 years since 1963 that most people identify Dr. King mainly by them.
Ask any school child who the man was, and they will tell you — he had a dream and was assassinated.
The trouble with repeating something for 60 years is that it loses some of its power to influence and inspire.
Not all of it. I certainly get choked up whenever I hear it. But it no longer has quite the same quality as when the words broke loose from the great man’s soul.