Does the Grandeur of Dr. King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech Blind Us to His Core Message?

<p>Bynow lots of people know it was Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/132905796" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">shouted</a>&nbsp;&ldquo;Tell them about your dream, Martin!&rdquo; during the 1963 March on Washington.</p> <p>If it wasn&rsquo;t for her, one of the most famous speeches in American history might have a lot less famous. And possibly forgotten altogether.</p> <p>Dr. King&rsquo;s speech was supposed to turn on the theme of an unpaid&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/08/27/214224111/clarence-b-jones-a-guiding-hand-behind-i-have-a-dream" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">promissory note</a>&nbsp;to America&rsquo;s Black citizens, which he did, in fact, include in his remarks from the Lincoln Memorial that day.</p> <p>The dream part wasn&rsquo;t in Dr. King&rsquo;s prepared text. But Mahalia Jackson and others had heard him speak of it.</p> <p>He just needed to be reminded of something that was already deeply embedded in his soul.&nbsp;His dream for an America that lived up to the promises of its foundational documents.</p> <h2>Those beautiful words &mdash;</h2> <p>I have a dream &mdash; have become so famous in the 60 years since 1963 that most people identify Dr. King mainly by them.</p> <p>Ask any school child who the man was, and they will tell you &mdash; he had a dream and was assassinated.</p> <p>The trouble with repeating something for 60 years is that it loses some of its power to influence and inspire.</p> <p>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&rsquo;s soul.</p> <p><a href="https://medium.com/illumination-curated/does-the-grandeur-of-dr-kings-i-have-a-dream-speech-obscure-his-core-message-caaf74751919">Read More</a></p>
Tags: Grandeur core