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A Summary and Analysis of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘I Have a Dream’ is one of the greatest speeches in American history. Delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68) in Washington D.C. in 1963, the speech is a powerful rallying cry for racial equality and for a fairer and equal world in which African Americans will be as free as white Americans.

If you’ve ever stayed up till the small hours working on a presentation you’re due to give the next day, tearing your hair out as you try to find the right words, you can take solace in the fact that as great an orator as Martin Luther King did the same with one of the most memorable speeches ever delivered.

He reportedly stayed up until 4am the night before he was due to give his ‘I Have a Dream’, writing it out in longhand. You can read the speech in full here .

‘I Have a Dream’: background

The occasion for King’s speech was the march on Washington , which saw some 210,000 African American men, women, and children gather at the Washington Monument in August 1963, before marching to the Lincoln Memorial.

They were marching for several reasons, including jobs (many of them were out of work), but the main reason was freedom: King and many other Civil Rights leaders sought to remove segregation of black and white Americans and to ensure black Americans were treated the same as white Americans.

1963 was the centenary of the Emancipation Proclamation , in which then US President Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) had freed the African slaves in the United States in 1863. But a century on from the abolition of slavery, King points out, black Americans still are not free in many respects.

‘I Have a Dream’: summary

King begins his speech by reminding his audience that it’s a century, or ‘five score years’, since that ‘great American’ Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This ensured the freedom of the African slaves, but Black Americans are still not free, King points out, because of racial segregation and discrimination.

America is a wealthy country, and yet many Black Americans live in poverty. It is as if the Black American is an exile in his own land. King likens the gathering in Washington to cashing a cheque: in other words, claiming money that is due to be paid.

Next, King praises the ‘magnificent words’ of the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence . King compares these documents to a promissory note, because they contain the promise that all men, including Black men, will be guaranteed what the Declaration of Independence calls ‘inalienable rights’: namely, ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’.

King asserts that America in the 1960s has ‘defaulted’ on this promissory note: in other words, it has refused to pay up. King calls it a ‘sacred obligation’, but America as a nation is like someone who has written someone else a cheque that has bounced and the money owed remains to be paid. But it is not because the money isn’t there: America, being a land of opportunity, has enough ‘funds’ to ensure everyone is prosperous enough.

King urges America to rise out of the ‘valley’ of segregation to the ‘sunlit path of racial justice’. He uses the word ‘brotherhood’ to refer to all Americans, since all men and women are God’s children. He also repeatedly emphasises the urgency of the moment. This is not some brief moment of anger but a necessary new start for America. However, King cautions his audience not to give way to bitterness and hatred, but to fight for justice in the right manner, with dignity and discipline.

Physical violence and militancy are to be avoided. King recognises that many white Americans who are also poor and marginalised feel a kinship with the Civil Rights movement, so all Americans should join together in the cause. Police brutality against Black Americans must be eradicated, as must racial discrimination in hotels and restaurants. States which forbid Black Americans from voting must change their laws.

Martin Luther King then comes to the most famous part of his speech, in which he uses the phrase ‘I have a dream’ to begin successive sentences (a rhetorical device known as anaphora ). King outlines the form that his dream, or ambition or wish for a better America, takes.

His dream, he tells his audience, is ‘deeply rooted’ in the American Dream: that notion that anybody, regardless of their background, can become prosperous and successful in the United States. King once again reminds his listeners of the opening words of the Declaration of Independence: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’

In his dream of a better future, King sees the descendants of former Black slaves and the descendants of former slave owners united, sitting and eating together. He has a dream that one day his children will live in a country where they are judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

Even in Mississippi and Alabama, states which are riven by racial injustice and hatred, people of all races will live together in harmony. King then broadens his dream out into ‘our hope’: a collective aspiration and endeavour. King then quotes the patriotic American song ‘ My Country, ’Tis of Thee ’, which describes America as a ‘sweet land of liberty’.

King uses anaphora again, repeating the phrase ‘let freedom ring’ several times in succession to suggest how jubilant America will be on the day that such freedoms are ensured. And when this happens, Americans will be able to join together and be closer to the day when they can sing a traditional African-American hymn : ‘Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.’

‘I Have a Dream’: analysis

Although Martin Luther King’s speech has become known by the repeated four-word phrase ‘I Have a Dream’, which emphasises the personal nature of his vision, his speech is actually about a collective dream for a better and more equal America which is not only shared by many Black Americans but by anyone who identifies with their fight against racial injustice, segregation, and discrimination.

Nevertheless, in working from ‘I have a dream’ to a different four-word phrase, ‘this is our hope’. The shift is natural and yet it is a rhetorical masterstroke, since the vision of a better nation which King has set out as a very personal, sincere dream is thus telescoped into a universal and collective struggle for freedom.

What’s more, in moving from ‘dream’ to a different noun, ‘hope’, King suggests that what might be dismissed as an idealistic ambition is actually something that is both possible and achievable. No sooner has the dream gathered momentum than it becomes a more concrete ‘hope’.

In his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, King was doing more than alluding to Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation one hundred years earlier. The opening words to his speech, ‘Five score years ago’, allude to a specific speech Lincoln himself had made a century before: the Gettysburg Address .

In that speech, delivered at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery (now known as Gettysburg National Cemetery) in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in November 1863, Lincoln had urged his listeners to continue in the fight for freedom, envisioning the day when all Americans – including Black slaves – would be free. His speech famously begins with the words: ‘Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.’

‘Four score and seven years’ is eighty-seven years, which takes us back from 1863 to 1776, the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. So, Martin Luther King’s allusion to the words of Lincoln’s historic speech do two things: they call back to Lincoln’s speech but also, by extension, to the founding of the United States almost two centuries before. Although Lincoln and the American Civil War represented progress in the cause to make all Americans free regardless of their ethnicity, King makes it clear in ‘I Have a Dream’ that there is still some way to go.

In the last analysis, King’s speech is a rhetorically clever and emotionally powerful call to use non-violent protest to oppose racial injustice, segregation, and discrimination, but also to ensure that all Americans are lifted out of poverty and degradation.

But most of all, King emphasises the collective endeavour that is necessary to bring about the world he wants his children to live in: the togetherness, the linking of hands, which is essential to make the dream a reality.

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"I Have a Dream"

August 28, 1963

Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered at the 28 August 1963  March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom , synthesized portions of his previous sermons and speeches, with selected statements by other prominent public figures.

King had been drawing on material he used in the “I Have a Dream” speech in his other speeches and sermons for many years. The finale of King’s April 1957 address, “A Realistic Look at the Question of Progress in the Area of Race Relations,” envisioned a “new world,” quoted the song “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” and proclaimed that he had heard “a powerful orator say not so long ago, that … Freedom must ring from every mountain side…. Yes, let it ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado…. Let it ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let it ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let it ring from every mountain and hill of Alabama. From every mountain side, let freedom ring” ( Papers  4:178–179 ).

In King’s 1959 sermon “Unfulfilled Hopes,” he describes the life of the apostle Paul as one of “unfulfilled hopes and shattered dreams” ( Papers  6:360 ). He notes that suffering as intense as Paul’s “might make you stronger and bring you closer to the Almighty God,” alluding to a concept he later summarized in “I Have a Dream”: “unearned suffering is redemptive” ( Papers  6:366 ; King, “I Have a Dream,” 84).

In September 1960, King began giving speeches referring directly to the American Dream. In a speech given that month at a conference of the North Carolina branches of the  National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , King referred to the unexecuted clauses of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution and spoke of America as “a dream yet unfulfilled” ( Papers  5:508 ). He advised the crowd that “we must be sure that our struggle is conducted on the highest level of dignity and discipline” and reminded them not to “drink the poisonous wine of hate,” but to use the “way of nonviolence” when taking “direct action” against oppression ( Papers  5:510 ).

King continued to give versions of this speech throughout 1961 and 1962, then calling it “The American Dream.” Two months before the March on Washington, King stood before a throng of 150,000 people at Cobo Hall in Detroit to expound upon making “the American Dream a reality” (King, Address at Freedom Rally, 70). King repeatedly exclaimed, “I have a dream this afternoon” (King, Address at Freedom Rally, 71). He articulated the words of the prophets Amos and Isaiah, declaring that “justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream,” for “every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low” (King, Address at Freedom Rally, 72). As he had done numerous times in the previous two years, King concluded his message imagining the 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 with the Negroes in the spiritual of old: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” (King,  Address at Freedom Rally , 73).

As King and his advisors prepared his speech for the conclusion of the 1963 march, he solicited suggestions for the text. Clarence  Jones   offered a metaphor for the unfulfilled promise of constitutional rights for African Americans, which King incorporated into the final text: “America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned” (King, “I Have a Dream,” 82). Several other drafts and suggestions were posed. References to Abraham Lincoln and the  Emancipation Proclamation  were sustained throughout the countless revisions. King recalled that he did not finish the complete text of the speech until 3:30 A.M. on the morning of 28 August.

Later that day, King stood at the podium overlooking the gathering. Although a typescript version of the speech was made available to the press on the morning of the march, King did not merely read his prepared remarks. He later recalled: “I started out reading the speech, and I read it down to a point … the audience response was wonderful that day…. And all of a sudden this thing came to me that … I’d used many times before.... ‘I have a dream.’ And I just felt that I wanted to use it here … I used it, and at that point I just turned aside from the manuscript altogether. I didn’t come back to it” (King, 29 November 1963).

The following day in the  New York Times,  James Reston wrote: “Dr. King touched all the themes of the day, only better than anybody else. He was full of the symbolism of Lincoln and Gandhi, and the cadences of the Bible. He was both militant and sad, and he sent the crowd away feeling that the long journey had been worthwhile” (Reston, “‘I Have a Dream …’”).

Carey to King, 7 June 1955, in  Papers  2:560–561.

Hansen,  The Dream,  2003.

King, Address at the Freedom Rally in Cobo Hall, in  A Call to Conscience , ed. Carson and Shepard, 2001.

King, “I Have a Dream,” Address Delivered at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, in  A Call to Conscience , ed. Carson and Shepard, 2001.

King, Interview by Donald H. Smith, 29 November 1963,  DHSTR-WHi .

King, “The Negro and the American Dream,” Excerpt from Address at the Annual Freedom Mass Meeting of the North Carolina State Conference of Branches of the NAACP, 25 September 1960, in  Papers  5:508–511.

King, “A Realistic Look at the Question of Progress in the Area of Race Relations,” Address Delivered at St. Louis Freedom Rally, 10 April 1957, in  Papers  4:167–179.

King, Unfulfilled Hopes, 5 April 1959, in  Papers  6:359–367.

James Reston, “‘I Have a Dream…’: Peroration by Dr. King Sums Up a Day the Capital Will Remember,”  New York Times , 29 August 1963.

The New York Times

The learning network | text to text | ‘i have a dream’ and ‘the lasting power of dr. king’s dream speech’.

Text to Text | ‘I Have a Dream’ and ‘The Lasting Power of Dr. King’s Dream Speech’

American History

Teaching ideas based on New York Times content.

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Last summer was the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. painted his dream of racial equality and justice for the nation that still resonates with us. “I have a dream,” he proclaimed, “my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” In this Text to Text , we pair Dr. King’s pivotal “I Have a Dream” speech with a reflection by the Times literary critic Michiko Kakutani, who explores why this singular speech has such lasting power.

Background: The speech that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered on Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial was not the speech he had prepared in his notes and stayed up nearly all night writing.

Dr. King was the closing speaker at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and the “Dream” speech that inspired a nation and helped galvanize the civil rights movement almost never happened. The march itself almost never happened, as David Brooks writes , because the Urban League, the N.A.A.C.P. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference either chose to opt out or were focusing their energy elsewhere before the events in Birmingham, Ala., in May 1963, with fire hoses and snapping dogs turned on protesters, helped reignite the call for a national march. The speech almost never happened because Dr. King didn’t think he had time to say all he wanted to say in the five minutes he was allotted — at the end of a long, hot summer day before the crowds were ready to disperse and go home.

But Dr. King was “the son, grandson and great-grandson of Baptist ministers,” Michiko Kakutani writes, and he “was comfortable with the black church’s oral tradition, and he knew how to read his audience and react to it.” In the middle of his speech, the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson urged him from behind the podium, “Tell ’em about the ‘Dream,’ Martin, tell ’em about the ‘Dream’!” She was referring to a riff he had delivered many times before, and in that moment, Dr. King broke from his prepared remarks and shared his transcendent vision for the nation’s future.

Below, we excerpted only the first part of Dr. King’s speech, but students should read the entire speech or this abridged version (PDF). For greater effect, they can listen to the audio or watch the video of Dr. King’s delivery while they read along.

Ms. Kakutani, a Pulitzer Prize-winning literary critic for The Times, reflects on the speech’s lasting power on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. We offer an excerpt that introduces her analysis, but we recommend that students read the entire article to explore her evidence for what makes the speech so remarkable.

Key Questions: Why is Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech so powerful, even 50 years later?

Activity Sheets: As students read and discuss, they might take notes using one or more of the three graphic organizers (PDFs) we have created for our Text to Text feature:

• Comparing Two or More Texts
• Double-Entry Chart for Close Reading
• Document Analysis Questions

Excerpt 1: From “The Lasting Power of Dr. King’s Dream Speech,” by Michiko Kakutani

It was late in the day and hot, and after a long march and an afternoon of speeches about federal legislation, unemployment and racial and social justice, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. finally stepped to the lectern, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, to address the crowd of 250,000 gathered on the National Mall. He began slowly, with magisterial gravity, talking about what it was to be black in America in 1963 and the “shameful condition” of race relations a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Unlike many of the day’s previous speakers, he did not talk about particular bills before Congress or the marchers’ demands. Instead, he situated the civil rights movement within the broader landscape of history — time past, present and future — and within the timeless vistas of Scripture. Dr. King was about halfway through his prepared speech when Mahalia Jackson — who earlier that day had delivered a stirring rendition of the spiritual “I Been ’Buked and I Been Scorned” — shouted out to him from the speakers’ stand: “Tell ’em about the ‘Dream,’ Martin, tell ’em about the ‘Dream’!” She was referring to a riff he had delivered on earlier occasions, and Dr. King pushed the text of his remarks to the side and began an extraordinary improvisation on the dream theme that would become one of the most recognizable refrains in the world. With his improvised riff, Dr. King took a leap into history, jumping from prose to poetry, from the podium to the pulpit. His voice arced into an emotional crescendo as he turned from a sobering assessment of current social injustices to a radiant vision of hope — of what America could be. “I have a dream,” he declared, “my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!” Many in the crowd that afternoon, 50 years ago on Wednesday, had taken buses and trains from around the country. Many wore hats and their Sunday best — “People then,” the civil rights leader John Lewis would recall, “when they went out for a protest, they dressed up” — and the Red Cross was passing out ice cubes to help alleviate the sweltering August heat. But if people were tired after a long day, they were absolutely electrified by Dr. King. There was reverent silence when he began speaking, and when he started to talk about his dream, they called out, “Amen,” and, “Preach, Dr. King, preach,” offering, in the words of his adviser Clarence B. Jones, “every version of the encouragements you would hear in a Baptist church multiplied by tens of thousands.” You could feel “the passion of the people flowing up to him,” James Baldwin, a skeptic of that day’s March on Washington, later wrote, and in that moment, “it almost seemed that we stood on a height, and could see our inheritance; perhaps we could make the kingdom real.” Dr. King’s speech was not only the heart and emotional cornerstone of the March on Washington, but also a testament to the transformative powers of one man and the magic of his words. Fifty years later, it is a speech that can still move people to tears. Fifty years later, its most famous lines are recited by schoolchildren and sampled by musicians. Fifty years later, the four words “I have a dream” have become shorthand for Dr. King’s commitment to freedom, social justice and nonviolence, inspiring activists from Tiananmen Square to Soweto, Eastern Europe to the West Bank. Why does Dr. King’s “Dream” speech exert such a potent hold on people around the world and across the generations? Part of its resonance resides in Dr. King’s moral imagination. Part of it resides in his masterly oratory and gift for connecting with his audience — be they on the Mall that day in the sun or watching the speech on television or, decades later, viewing it online. And part of it resides in his ability, developed over a lifetime, to convey the urgency of his arguments through language richly layered with biblical and historical meanings….

Excerpt 2: From “I Have a Dream,” by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children….

For Writing or Discussion

• Michiko Kakutani asks: “Why does Dr. King’s ‘Dream’ speech exert such a potent hold on people around the world and across the generations?” What answer does she provide? What is the most powerful evidence she uses to back up her analysis?
• Ms. Kakutani explains that “with his improvised riff, Dr. King took a leap into history, jumping from prose to poetry, from the podium to the pulpit.” What does she mean by that description?
• After reading, listening or watching Dr. King’s “Dream” speech, describe your reaction. What do you find powerful or moving in the speech? Do you have a favorite line or phrase? Explain.
• How does Dr. King use figurative language and other poetic and oratorical devices, such as repetition and theme, to make his speech more powerful?
• What historical and biblical allusions do you recognize within the speech? Which allusions do you find most compelling, and why?
• Have we achieved Dr. King’s dream 50 years later? What progress do you think this country has made since the March on Washington with regard to civil rights? What progress do we still need to make? Cite evidence to support your opinion.

Going Further

1. Witnesses to History: How did people at the time react — to Dr. King’s “Dream” speech as well as to the march as a whole? The Times gathered reflections from readers who attended the march . Choose one or two memories to read in the Interactive. What was most powerful about the march for them? What was their recollection of Dr. King’s speech?

Alternatively, read James Reston’s 1963 news analysis published the day after the march in The Times to understand one contemporary critic’s perspective. Mr. Reston writes:

It was Dr. King who, near the end of the day, touched the vast audience…. But Dr. King brought them alive in the late afternoon with a peroration that was an anguished echo from all the old American reformers. Roger Williams calling for religious liberty. Sam Adams calling for political liberty, old man Thoreau denouncing coercion, William Lloyd Garrison demanding emancipation, and Eugene V. Debs crying for economic equality — Dr. King echoed them all. “I have a dream,” he cried again and again. And each time the dream was a promise out of our ancient articles of faith: phrases from the Constitution. lines from the great anthem of the nation, guarantees from the Bill of Rights, all ending with a vision that they all one day might come true.

How does Mr. Reston view the “Dream” speech? What additional insights does this news analysis give you about how The Times, or the mainstream news media in general, might have viewed the event at the time?

2. Other Civil Rights Speeches: Dr. King’s “Dream” speech is the best known of a long line of civil rights speeches. The Times collected other speeches that have influenced perceptions of race in America, including Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” and Fannie Lou Hamer’s testimony at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Choose one speech and compare it to “I Have a Dream” in both tone and message.

3. Nonviolent Resistance: Dr. King’s speech was grounded in a larger movement committed to nonviolent resistance. Read the Times columnist David Brooks’s “The Ideas Behind the March,” and then consider the following questions:

• Mr. Brooks writes: “Nonviolent coercion was an ironic form of aggression. Nonviolence furnished the movement with a series of tactics that allowed it to remain on permanent offense.” What does he mean by that? How does this analysis help explain why nonviolence is often so effective?
• What current issue do you think would be well served by a nonviolent reform movement like the civil rights movement? Why is this issue important to you, and what actions would you want such a movement to take to make change?

4. Assessing the Dream: Daniel R. Smith attended both the March on Washington in 1963 and the 50th anniversary commemoration last August. Five decades after Dr. King’s historic speech, Mr. Smith reflected on how much progress the nation has made in terms of civil rights, but he also wondered if “the pace has slowed considerably.” Read “50 Years After March, Views of Fitful Progress” and study the related graphic analyzing change over time in key areas like education and jobs. How much progress do you think the country has made in civil rights since 1963? How much progress do we still need to make? Cite evidence to support your opinion.

More Resources:

Celebrating M.L.K. Day — news articles, Opinion articles, multimedia and lesson plans related to Dr. King and the civil rights movement

Additional Lesson Plans — by the Gilder Lehrman Institute and PBS for middle school and high school students

This resource may be used to address the academic standards listed below.

Common Core E.L.A. Anchor Standards

1   Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

2   Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

4   Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

5   Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

Comments are no longer being accepted.

Another fantastic lesson plan. I teach AP English Language and Composition. King’s writings are an essential part of the curriculum; these ideas will be great springboards for discussion. Thank you!

James Mulhern, //www.synthesizingeducation.net Atlantic Technical Center Magnet High School Coconut Creek, Florida

Remarkable Rev, Dr Martin Luther King, an exemplary and epitome of peace movement, who has shown extreme rationality in pursuit of justice, equality and freedom without any violence, taught us how to live a life with a high plane of dignity and prosperity, a life of liberty and equality, a life of complete unanimity and harmony in regard with racism. He taught us the real meaning of revolution……. revolution forwarded to bring the bright and sparkling light of hope of peace and tranquillity. His philosophies, ideologies and of course his dream for AMERICANS reflect his heart which is replete with abundance of humanity, compassion, fraternity and brotherhood. Yes, I have a dream and the dream is to live your dream.

Martin Luther King Jr. had the most memorable speak ever in the history of time. Something new that I have learned about Dr. King’s speech is that it was not the one he had prepared for the event. It amazes me that he still managed to say such a magnificent speak and it was not the one he was preparing for it just happened. I think Martin Luther King Jr. speech of “I Have a Dream” is still so powerful till this day is because it was something he was fighting for, for everybody and it was something that was so unique to everybody to hear it was wonderful. The main reason for the speech is for everyone to see that we are equal and for the future to be better than how it was, it just needed to be different. Many people loved the speech that he did but then again there were also others who disliked for the meaning it was about. The people who did not like it probably did not like it because they wanted it to stay the same and were probably taught to hate on others for a reason. Martin to me was a very unique man for doing what he did but there were also others who did the same thing and stood up for what they believed in. Everyone including Martin made others realize what was going on and things needed to be different. So it gave others confidence to do something towards a situation that they may not like and to say something about. The speech was a very peaceful way to say what the problem of the situation was it was not a violent thing to do but it was also dangerous. He did not care that if some were hating on him because of the speech or what he was doing, he must have been proud for what he was doing, I now I would be proud. This speech will always be around and very memorable till this day and till the future.

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I Have a Dream Speech Transcript – Martin Luther King Jr.

One of the most iconic and famous speeches of all time, Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was delivered during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. Read the full transcript of this classic speech.

Martin Luther King Jr.: ( 00:59 ) I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Martin Luther King Jr.: ( 01:32 ) Five score years ago, a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity, but 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. 100 years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. 100 years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. 100 years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land.

Martin Luther King Jr.: ( 03:10 ) So we’ve come here today to dramatize the shameful condition. In a sense, we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which ever American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.

Martin Luther King Jr.: ( 04:25 ) But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom, and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

Martin Luther King Jr.: ( 06:16 ) It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summit of the Negroes legitimate discontent will not pass until that is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.

Martin Luther King Jr.: ( 06:53 ) There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But that is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plain of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protests to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy, which has engulfed the Negro community, must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize their destiny is tied up in our destiny.

Martin Luther King Jr.: ( 08:54 ) They have come realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone, and as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. They are those who asking the devotees of civil rights, when will you be satisfied? We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negroes basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating, For Whites Only. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote, and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Martin Luther King Jr.: ( 10:48 ) I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that honor and suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friend, 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. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created.”

Martin Luther King Jr.: ( 12:54 ) I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of our skin, but by the content of that character. I have a dream today.

Martin Luther King Jr.: ( 13:50 ) I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.

Martin Luther King Jr.: ( 14:27 ) I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is a faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

Martin Luther King Jr.: ( 15:29 ) This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, My country, Tis of thee, Sweet land of Liberty, Of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, Land of the Pilgrim’s pride, From every mountainside, Let freedom ring. If America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

Martin Luther King Jr.: ( 15:58 ) So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring, and when this happens, 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 Catholic, 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!

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(1963) martin luther king jr., “i have a dream”.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, remains his most memorable oration. The entire speech appears below.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.  Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.  It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.  One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the Negro is still languishing in the comers of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.  Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor try America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.  Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricable bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead.  We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.  We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells.  Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering.  Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our modern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state sweltering in the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.  With this faith we will be able to work transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with meaning “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.  Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.  From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let 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!”

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William Safire, ed., Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (W. W. Norton & Company: New York, 1992).

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Speech for Martin Luther King Day

This speech is intended for use as a keynote speech for a Martin Luther King Day event. If you are a key note speaker for an MLK day event, you can modify this sample speech to meet your needs or audience or use as is. These prepared remarks could also be used for events about racial inequality, race relations, Black History Month, or other race and social justice focused speeches. This speech is the property of Canuwrite.com but may be used free of charge.

I’m so pleased to be here today. It’s a great honor to speak about the legacy of the Reverend Martin Luther King Junior. I’d like to begin with a quote from Dr King.

”Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

His message of nonviolence, peaceful protest and equality is as pertinent now as it was in his lifetime. Also pertinent is the truth and power behind that message, and the need we still have for it in our society.

As we commemorate this Martin Luther King day, we can look around at the news and at our communities and see that we still have a significant racial divide in our country. The marches, protests and even divisions among friends and families show that racism and discrimination did not end with the Civil Rights Movement. Indeed, there is still much work to be done today.

Today, all across the country, we remember Dr. King. In parades and speeches and schools and churches, people honor his legacy. But it’s important to remember, he was not always so popular. He was not seen as a hero by many people during his life. Martin Luther King junior was an agitator. He was an activist. He made trouble. He did not accept the status quo. He stood up to authority and faced down firehoses and attack dogs and tear gas and police batons. In his lifetime, he was arrested 29 times according to the King Center in Atlanta. He worked with many other Civil Rights leaders of the time to lead marches and strikes. He and his followers blocked traffic, for instance during the 54 mile March from Selma to Montgomery. They participated in civil disobedience by peacefully protesting against unjust laws and practices. They disrupted public transportation and demonstrated outside of government offices, schools and commercial districts. Martin Luther King and many others like him fought segregation and discrimination when it was very unpopular and very, very dangerous to do so. He worked with religious leaders of many denominations. He worked with students, with workers, with people of color and with white people to try and force changes in a society that did not want changes. He and the other Civil Rights activists fought against inequality at the risk of their own safety. The fought to make sure that equal means equal, that justice means justice, and that every citizen is treated fairly.

We know that in the South there were laws enforcing segregation and discrimination. That legacy of racism was enshrined in law, plain to see. Yet the North wasn’t free of racism or discrimination either, even if it wasn’t blatantly backed up by laws. In the South laws enforced segregation. In the North, schools and neighborhoods were segregated not by law but by economics and social divisions. Riots, lynching, voter suppression, job discrimination – these happened in both North and South. While it was certainly more blatant in the South, racism is a problem that affected and affects us all still today. It did not end with the dismantling of Jim Crow laws. Racism is a problem that persists.

Today the idea of separate water fountains and waiting rooms seems preposterous. The idea that a person of color had to give up their bus seat for a white person seems crazy or that black people weren’t welcome to eat at any restaurant they wanted. It’s inconceivable that it was once illegal for black people and white people to get married. But the truth is, it’s simply not that long ago. Young people, ask your parents or your grandparents, your teachers or other adults about their memories of racial injustice in this country. They can tell you stories about things they’ve seen or things they remember happening in this country that would seem absolutely absurd today. Yet the fact is, it hasn’t been that long.

I’m reminded of a quote by the brilliant African American academic, author and Civil Rights leader W.E. B. DuBois. In 1903 he wrote, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.”

So what is the color line, you might wonder? The color line is the division between people of color and white people. The Color Line was first mentioned by Civil Rights leader, abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass who talked about the Color Line back in 1881. It has been discussed and debated by scholars, authors and activists since then.

It has been more than 100 years since DuBois identified it as the defining issue of the 20th century. It’s easy to look back to 1903, when there were still Civil War veterans and former slaves walking the streets of America, and see why DuBois would have called the Color Line the most important issue. Yet here we are today, and those generations have passed, but they’ve left their legacy with us and our society. When you look around and see the unrest, tension and protests in America, you can see that the Color Line persists. Sadly, it is still dividing us.

The problem of the color line stretches from our grandparents and great-grandparents through to us today. Will it continue from us to the generations that follow? To our children, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren?

For the younger people here, I want you to imagine your own children and grandchildren asking you about the history of racial oppression in this country. Think about what’s happening today: the racial strife, the marches, the protests and arguments. It has been only 50 years since the Civil Rights movement. The distance of time gives us perspective to look back on what happened then. Think of our modern days. How will the events of today look 50 years from now? In 50 years, will we still be fighting the same fights and having the same arguments about race? Instead, will we work to make progress and move forward to a place where the color line does not divide us for another 50 years?

Leaders like Martin Luther King fought to destroy the color line, and they paid for it with their lives. It’s a dehumanizing and tragic separation that hurts us all, and if we truly wish to honor the legacy of Dr. King, we must look to ourselves and our own communities and ask some hard questions. Where do I see racism in my daily life? Where do I see racism in my community? How is racism imbedded in American institutions and politics? Is it possible I only understand this topic from one perspective because of the color of my skin, or where I was raised? How can I learn more and seek to fight racism and inequality? How can I do my part?

Today, I want you to celebrate the legacy of Dr. King, yes, but I want you to do more than that. I want you to question yourself and be honest about your answers. I want you to educate yourself about history. I want you to read books and essays from perspectives that are new or different to you. I want you to make an effort to cross the color line and talk with people from a different racial or ethnic background, a different religion or those from another country. Try and listen to their perspectives and experiences with an open heart and an open mind. Try to imagine how you’d feel in their situation.

Can we listen to each other’s experiences and try to bridge the gap that still separates people in our country? Can we embrace our fellow Americans and work to ensure we are not the divided states but rather the United States of America? Yes, I believe we can. It’s up to us.

Dr. King and the other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement helped to bring about massive changes in America, but their work was not finished. Here we are years later and the color line still persists. As a country, as a people, we need to continue to work to ensure equality, opportunity and justice for all. This is our work, friends. The time is now, right now. We can’t shy away. We can’t depend on anyone else to do it. This is our mission and if we are brave and steadfast, we can all move forward together, as one people.

I’d like to close with another quote from Dr. King.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Remember this quote as you go forward. Remember to stand up against injustice and speak out for what is right. Remember to listen to the perspectives of people of other racial and ethnic groups and be open minded. Remember to keep learning and challenging yourself as you go. And remember to do your part to ensure that the color line ends here.

We hope this sample keynote speech for Martin Luther King Day was useful. Check out our other sample speeches and remarks for other holidays, heritage months and special events.

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What did Martin Luther King, Jr., do?

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Martin Luther King, Jr., was a Baptist minister and social rights activist in the United States in the 1950s and ’60s. He was a leader of the American civil rights movement . He organized a number of peaceful protests as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference , including the March on Washington in 1963. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and, at the time, he was the youngest person to have done so. Learn more.

Martin Luther King, Jr., is known for his contributions to the American civil rights movement in the 1960s. His most famous work is his “ I Have a Dream ” speech, delivered in 1963, in which he spoke of his dream of a United States that is void of segregation and racism. King also advocated for nonviolent methods of protest, and he organized and staged countless marches and boycotts.

Martin Luther King, Jr., influenced people around the world. He advocated for peaceful approaches to some of society’s biggest problems. He organized a number of marches and protests and was a key figure in the American civil rights movement . He was instrumental in the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike , the Montgomery bus boycott , and the March on Washington . The holiday honoring King is often celebrated as the MLK Day of Service, a reflection of his legacy of addressing social problems through collective action.

Martin Luther King, Jr., grew up as the middle child of Michael (later Martin Luther) King, Sr., and Alberta Williams King. His father was the minister of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta—the same church where Martin Luther King, Jr., would eventually minister. In 1953 King married Coretta Scott , and the two had four children: Yolanda, Martin Luther III, Dexter Scott, and Bernice.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was standing on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, when he was shot by James Earl Ray . An hour later, King died at St. Joseph’s hospital. His death sparked riots across the country. In the United States he is memorialized on the third Monday of January every year— Martin Luther King, Jr., Day , which was first observed as a federal holiday in 1986.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. (born January 15, 1929, Atlanta, Georgia , U.S.—died April 4, 1968, Memphis , Tennessee) was a Baptist minister and social activist who led the civil rights movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. His leadership was fundamental to that movement’s success in ending the legal segregation of African Americans in the South and other parts of the United States. King rose to national prominence as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference , which promoted nonviolent tactics , such as the massive March on Washington (1963), to achieve civil rights . He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

King came from a comfortable middle-class family steeped in the tradition of the Southern Black ministry: both his father and maternal grandfather were Baptist preachers. His parents were college-educated, and King’s father had succeeded his father-in-law as pastor of the prestigious Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta . The family lived on Auburn Avenue, otherwise known as “Sweet Auburn,” the bustling “Black Wall Street,” home to some of the country’s largest and most prosperous Black businesses and Black churches in the years before the civil rights movement. Young Martin received a solid education and grew up in a loving extended family .

This secure upbringing, however, did not prevent King from experiencing the prejudices then common in the South . He never forgot the time when, at about age six, one of his white playmates announced that his parents would no longer allow him to play with King, because the children were now attending segregated schools. Dearest to King in these early years was his maternal grandmother, whose death in 1941 left him shaken and unstable. Upset because he had learned of her fatal heart attack while attending a parade without his parents’ permission, the 12-year-old King attempted suicide by jumping from a second-story window.

In 1944, at age 15, King entered Morehouse College in Atlanta under a special wartime program intended to boost enrollment by admitting promising high-school students like King. Before beginning college, however, King spent the summer on a tobacco farm in Connecticut; it was his first extended stay away from home and his first substantial experience of race relations outside the segregated South. He was shocked by how peacefully the races mixed in the North. “Negroes and whites go [to] the same church,” he noted in a letter to his parents. “I never [thought] that a person of my race could eat anywhere.” This summer experience in the North only deepened King’s growing hatred of racial segregation .

At Morehouse, King favored studies in medicine and law, but these were eclipsed in his senior year by a decision to enter the ministry, as his father had urged. King’s mentor at Morehouse was the college president , Benjamin Mays , a social gospel activist whose rich oratory and progressive ideas had left an indelible imprint on King’s father. Committed to fighting racial inequality, Mays accused the African American community of complacency in the face of oppression, and he prodded the Black church into social action by criticizing its emphasis on the hereafter instead of the here and now; it was a call to service that was not lost on the teenage King. He graduated from Morehouse in 1948.

King spent the next three years at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester , Pennsylvania, where he became acquainted with Mohandas Gandhi ’s philosophy of nonviolence as well as with the thought of contemporary Protestant theologians. He earned a bachelor of divinity degree in 1951. Renowned for his oratorical skills, King was elected president of Crozer’s student body, which was composed almost exclusively of white students. As a professor at Crozer wrote in a letter of recommendation for King, “The fact that with our student body largely Southern in constitution a colored man should be elected to and be popular [in] such a position is in itself no mean recommendation.” From Crozer, King went to Boston University , where, in seeking a firm foundation for his own theological and ethical inclinations, he studied man’s relationship to God and received a doctorate (1955) for a dissertation titled “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman.”

HISTORIC ARTICLE

Aug 28, 1963 ce: martin luther king jr. gives "i have a dream" speech.

On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington, a large gathering of civil rights protesters in Washington, D.C., United States.

Social Studies, Civics, U.S. History

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On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., took the podium at the March on Washington  and addressed the gathered crowd, which numbered 200,000 people or more. His speech became famous for its recurring phrase “I have a dream.” He imagined a future in which “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners" could "sit down together at the table of brotherhood,” a future in which his four children are judged not "by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." King's moving speech became a central part of his legacy. King was born in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, in 1929. Like his father and grandfather, King studied theology and became a Baptist  pastor . In 1957, he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference ( SCLC ), which became a leading civil rights organization. Under King's leadership, the SCLC promoted nonviolent resistance to segregation, often in the form of marches and boycotts. In his campaign for racial equality, King gave hundreds of speeches, and was arrested more than 20 times. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his "nonviolent struggle for civil rights ." On April 4, 1968, King was shot and killed while standing on a balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.

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Martin Luther King Jr.’s Famous Speech Almost Didn’t Have the Phrase 'I Have a Dream'

Widely regarded as one of the world’s most “transformative and influential” speeches alongside Abraham Lincoln ’s 1863 Gettysburg Address and Winston Churchill’s 1940 “Blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech, the impact of King’s words that hot summer afternoon in Washington, D.C., struck a chord with civil rights advocates near and far and became a powerful rallying cry.

King’s speech sparked a movement, which helped create the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, ending racial segregation in the United States.

But those four famous words almost didn’t make it into the speech.

King wanted the speech to be 'like the Gettysburg Address'

Before he stepped up to the podium that day, King was already known on the national stage for his civil rights work. He had already been a leader in the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and the Greensboro sit-in movement in 1960 and was known for his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail , where he was taken after a peaceful demonstration.

The Baptist minister, who was also the head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was known as a powerful orator, but the bulk of his audience had been within the African American community. Fellow civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph had reached out to him and other prominent figures in the movement to organize the march followed by three hours of speeches.

The three major television networks at the time — ABC, CBS and NBC — had all promised to cover the event, so King knew the stakes were high. Even though he was limited to five minutes, his goal was clear: To make a speech with impact on the nation “like the Gettysburg address.”

He confided in a team of trusted advisors

To carefully craft the right words, King turned to his inner circle. The first draft was written by Stanley Levison and Clarence Jones, two of his advisers.

“When it came to my speech drafts, [King] often acted like an interior designer,” Jones said, according to The Guardian . “I would deliver four strong walls and he would use his God-given abilities to furnish the place so it felt like home.”

Even though they knew the importance of the speech, with the logistics, they only gathered as a group at the Willard Hotel the evening before the speech. “We met in the lobby rather than in a suite, under the assumption that the lobby would be harder to wiretap,” Jones wrote in the Washington Post . “It was with this odd start, hiding in plain sight, that 12 hours before the March on Washington began, Martin gathered with a small group of advisers to hammer out the themes of his speech.”

Even though King was happy with the draft, he had wanted to get as much input as possible. “So that evening he had a cross-section of advisers present to fill any blind spots,” Jones wrote. “Cleveland Robinson, Walter Fauntroy, Bernard Lee, Ralph Abernathy , Lawrence Reddick and I joined him, along with Wyatt Walker and Bayard Rustin , who were in and out of our deliberations.”

Of course, everyone had their own take, which became a challenge to juggle. “As we ate sandwiches, our suggestions tumbled out,” Jones remembers. “Cleve, Lawrence and I saw the speech as an opportunity to stake an ideological and political marker in the debate over civil rights and segregation. Others were more inclined for Martin to deliver a sort of church sermon, steeped in parables and Bible quotes. Some, however, worried that biblical language would obfuscate the real message — reform of the legal system. And still others wanted Martin to direct his remarks to the students, Black and white, who would be marching that day.”

READ MORE: Martin Luther King Jr. and 8 Black Activists Who Led the Civil Rights Movement

'I have a dream' was originally cut from the speech

The idea of the “dream” had actually been one that King long talked about, almost like a theme throughout his previous speeches. Walker had the strongest opinion: “Don’t use the lines about ‘I have a dream.’ It’s trite, it’s cliche. You’ve used it too many times already.”

Respecting his view, the mention of the dream was cut from the speech. At 4 a.m., King finally went to bed. “I am now going upstairs to my room to counsel with my Lord,” he said, according to The Guardian . “I will see you all tomorrow.”

King said 'it would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment'

While everything was meticulously planned, the organizers still worried there may not be the turnout they hoped for. After all, they set a goal of 100,000 to attend the March on Washington.

But on August 28 — despite the heat in the nation’s capital, which reached 87 degrees Fahrenheit with uncomfortable humidity — people started showing up en masse. Among them were notable names: Josephine Baker , Marlon Brando , Harry Belafonte , Sammy Davis Jr. , James Garner , Charlton Heston, Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier .

“It was truly staggering. Estimates vary widely, depending on the agenda of who was keeping count, but those of us who were involved in planning The March put the number at a minimum of 250,000,” Jones wrote in his book , Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation . “They showed up to connect with The Movement, to draw strength from the speakers and from each other.”

By the time it was King’s turn, some people had already headed out because of the stifling heat. But nothing was holding him back from his moment on the national stage.

"I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation,” he first addressed the crowd.

Then, much like the Lincoln speech he sought inspiration from that started, “Four score and seven years ago,” he started with the words, “Five score years ago,” and highlighted the importance of the Emancipation Proclamation .

“But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free,” he continued, before describing the state of African American life in the United States.

Then he moved into the purpose of the march: “In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, Black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

“It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment,” he continued, emphasizing why it was essential for imminent action. “And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”

A gospel singer prompted King to say 'I have a dream'

While his words were impactful, they didn’t have the tremendous punch he was hoping for. But then gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who had sung “I’ve Been ‘Buked and I’ve Been Scorned” and was close to King, instinctively shouted out, “Tell ‘em about the dream, Martin.”

Throwing the script out the window, he turned to his dream.

“I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream,” he started before launching into his most famous passage. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal,'” he stated.

He described a world of equality, with various slices of what that looked like. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” he also said. And in between every scene of the “dream,” he stated, “I have a dream today.”

Building up a cadence that had the crowd engaged and enthused, he concluded: “And when this happens, when we allow freedom to 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!’”

King knew that by abandoning his manuscript, he created the strongest impact

Looking back on the day, Jones notes a shift as soon King threw all the prepared remarks out the window: “When he was reading from his text, he stood like a lecturer. But from the moment he set that text aside, he took on the stance of a Baptist preacher.”

And that was the kind of messaging America needed to hear.

Even King looked back on all the long hours preparing and realized that nothing resonated more than reading a crowd and trusting his instinct.

“I started out reading the speech, and I read it down to a point,” he later said. “The audience response was wonderful that day… and all of a sudden this thing came to me that… I’d used many times before… ‘I have a dream.’ And I just felt that I wanted to use it here… I used it, and at that point I just turned aside from the manuscript altogether. I didn’t come back to it.”

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7 Things You May Not Know About MLK’s ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech

By: Sarah Pruitt

Updated: August 1, 2024 | Original: January 13, 2021

On August 28, 1963, in front of a crowd of nearly 250,000 people spread across the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the Baptist preacher and civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his now-famous “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Organizers of the event, officially known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, had hoped 100,000 people would attend. In the end, more than twice that number flooded into the nation’s capital for the massive protest march, making it the largest demonstration in U.S. history to that date.

King’s “I Have a Dream” speech now stands out as one of the 20th century’s most unforgettable moments, but a few facts about it may still surprise you.

1. There were initially no women included in the event.

Despite the central role that women like Rosa Parks , Ella Baker, Daisy Bates and others played in the civil rights movement , all the speakers at the March on Washington were men. But at the urging of Anna Hedgeman, the only woman on the planning committee, the organizers added a “Tribute to Negro Women Fighters for Freedom” to the program. Bates spoke briefly in the place of Myrlie Evers, widow of the murdered civil rights leader Medgar Evers , and Parks and several others were recognized and asked to take a bow. “We will sit-in and we will kneel-in and we will lie-in if necessary until every Negro in America can vote,” Bates said. “This we pledge to the women of America.”

More to History: MLK’s Presidential Run that Wasn’t

Martin Luther King Jr. was a hugely influential figure in American life and surprised many that he never chose to enter the political arena. But he almost did.

The 1968 Sanitation Workers’ Strike That Drew MLK to Memphis

With the slogan, "I am a man," workers in Memphis sought financial justice in a strike that fatefully became Martin Luther King Jr.'s final cause.

America in Mourning After MLK’s Shocking Assassination: Photos

There were multiple memorials and tributes to the fallen civil rights leader.

2. A white labor leader and a rabbi were among the 10 speakers on stage that day.

King was preceded by nine other speakers, notably including civil rights leaders like A. Philip Randolph and a young John Lewis , the future congressman from Georgia. The most prominent white speaker was Walter Reuther , head of the United Automobile Workers, a powerful labor union. The UAW helped fund the March on Washington, and Reuther would later march alongside King from Selma to Montgomery to protest for Black voting rights. 

Joachim Prinz, the president of the American Jewish Congress, spoke directly before King. “A great people who had created a great civilization had become a nation of silent onlookers,” Prinz said of his experience as a rabbi in Berlin during the horrors perpetrated by Adolf Hitler ’s Nazi regime. “America must not become a nation of onlookers. America must not remain silent.”

3. King almost didn’t deliver what is now the most famous part of the speech.

King had debuted the phrase “I have a dream” in his speeches at least nine months before the March on Washington, and used it several times since then. His advisers discouraged him from using the same theme again, and he had apparently drafted a version of the speech that didn’t include it. But as he spoke that day, the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson prompted him to “Tell them about the dream, Martin.” Abandoning his prepared text, King improvised the rest of his speech, with electrifying results.

4. The speech makes allusions to the Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, Shakespeare and the Bible.

“Five score years ago,” King began, referencing the opening of Abraham Lincoln ’s Gettysburg Address as well as the Emancipation Proclamation , which had gone into effect in 1863. After 100 years, King noted, “the Negro is still not free,” and the rights promised in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were still denied to Black Americans.

The image of “this sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent” echoes the opening soliloquy in William Shakespeare ’s Richard III (“Now is the winter of our discontent”), while the soaring end of the speech, with its repeated refrains of “Let freedom ring” calls on the 19th-century patriotic song "My Country 'Tis of Thee," written by Samuel Francis Smith. 

Finally, King’s speech repeatedly draws on the Bible , including an allusion to the Book of Psalms (“Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning”) and a quote from the Book of Isaiah (“Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low...”), to name just two references.

5. The speech impressed the Kennedy administration and helped advance civil rights legislation in Congress.

All three major TV networks at the time (ABC, CBS and NBC) aired King’s speech, and though he was already a national figure by that time, it marked the first time many Americans — reportedly including President John F. Kennedy — had heard him deliver an entire speech. Kennedy was assassinated less than three months later, but his successor, Lyndon Johnson , would sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, marking the most significant advances in civil rights legislation since Reconstruction .

6. The success of the speech attracted the attention (and suspicion) of the FBI.

Federal authorities monitored the March on Washington closely , fearing sedition and violence. Policing of the march turned into a military operation, codenamed Operation Steep Hill, with 19,000 troops put on standby in the D.C. suburbs to quell possible rioting (which didn’t happen). After the event, FBI official William Sullivan wrote that King’s “powerful, demagogic speech” meant that “we must mark him now...as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation.” 

At the FBI’s urging, Attorney General Robert Kennedy authorized the installation of wiretaps on King’s phone and those at the offices of his organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), ostensibly to look into potential communist ties. The FBI later stepped up its surveillance of King, which lasted until his assassination in 1968.

7. The King family still owns the 'I Have a Dream' speech.

Though it is one of the most famous and widely celebrated speeches in U.S. history, the “I Have a Dream” speech is not in the public domain, but is protected by copyright—which is owned and enforced by King’s heirs. As reported in the Washington Post , King himself obtained the rights a month after he gave the speech, when he sued two companies selling unauthorized copies. Though some parts of the speech may be used lawfully without approval (for example, individual teachers have been able to use the speech in their classrooms), the King estate requires anyone who wants to air the speech to pay for that right. 

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‘He Had Transformed’: What It Was Like to Watch Martin Luther King Jr. Give the ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech

T uesday marks 55 years since the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech to the crowd that had gathered around the Lincoln Memorial for the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington.

While planning for the event had been going on for years before that day, and copies of the speech drafts and notes show that King had been working on what to say for weeks, many may not realize that the most famous lines were not planned at all.

Some credit goes to the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, King’s former legal counsel Clarence B. Jones , 87, tells TIME. She was one of his most trusted advisors — and an informal therapist of sorts, as Jones frames it. “When he would get very down and depressed, he would ask his secretary Dora McDonald to get Mahalia on the phone,” he says. “He would lean back, close his eyes, and tears would run down his face as she would sing to him.”

So it’s not a surprise that after she performed “How I Got Over” and “I’ve Been ‘Buked and I’ve Been Scorned” at the march, she stuck close by through what would turn out to be one of his most important speeches.

“What most people don’t know is that she shouted to him as he was speaking, ‘Martin! Tell them about the dream! Martin, tell them about the dream!’ I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. I was not on the stage, Dr. King’s back was to me as he was speaking, but I could hear and see him,” Jones tells TIME. “He took the written text that he had been reading from and moved it to the left side of the lectern, grabbed both hands of the lectern, and looked out to the thousands of people out there, and that’s when he started speaking extemporaneously. When Baptist preachers get particularly moved, many of them have a habit of taking their right foot as they’re standing and rubbing it up and down the lower part of their left leg. I saw Martin start to rub his right foot on the lower part of his left leg, and I said to someone who was standing next to me, ‘These people out there, they don’t know it, but they’re about ready to go to church.'”

The day unleashed a side of King that Jones had never seen before.

Step Into History: Learn how to experience the 1963 March on Washington in virtual reality

It wasn’t the precise wording that was new. King had even used the phrase “I Have a Dream,” just a couple months earlier in Detroit at a rally for freedom that Reverend C.L. Franklin, Aretha Franklin’s father, helped organize, and “it did not evoke any kind of special response,” says Jones, who went on to write the book Behind the Dream : The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation .

“I had seen Dr. King speak many times in churches throughout the country, but [at the March on Washington] there was something kind of mystical. He had transformed. Oh my God, something had taken over his body. It was spell-binding,” Jones says. “The speech was, in its content, not a profound analysis or commentary, but it’s the way he spoke and the intensity of how he felt.”

Jones believes that intensity came from the challenge of asking America to live up to its ideals just four months after the nation had been confronted with horrifying photographs and television footage of African-American adults and children being faced down with police dogs and fire hoses in Birmingham, Ala.

“I think [the speech] was giving an answer to a rhetorical question addressed collectively to the nation. That question is: what kind of country are we? The speech was a call to the soul of America. It was a call to the moral conscience of America. The powerful use of the phrase ‘I have a dream’ was a summons to the conscience of America,” Jones says. “One of the things King knew at that time is that no matter how compelling the case was on its merits for ending racial segregation, there was no way in hell that African Americans would be able to impose that point of view on the white American majority. The only way it was going to happen is when we got the majority of white people to understand that it was in [their] self-interest that this practice of racial segregation end. That we can be better than we are.”

Today, Jones says, “unsolved” racial equality issues and income inequality mean that the theme of America not living up to its ideals is more relevant than ever . Jones, who lives in Palo Alto, Calif., says he sees that fact regularly in his everyday life: “I’m out here in Silicon Valley — how is it that there are homeless people sleeping on the streets in San Francisco?”

But, he also says, the solution to that problem is something all Americans can help with.

“At the end of the day, if you want to implement Martin King’s dream, if you’re eligible to vote, you have to register to vote, and you have to vote,” he says. “If you want to implement his dreams, you can only do that from power, and power doesn’t come from speeches. Power comes from voting. Anyone who wants to honor Martin’s legacy tomorrow, that’s the best way to pay tribute to his dream.”

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On His Day, King's 'Dream' Speech In Its Entirety

As millions of Americans honor his legacy today with a national day of service, we take a moment to reflect on Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy, in his own words. We revisit his "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered on August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Copyright © 2011 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

August 10, 2024

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Daughter Claps Back At Donald Trump For Comparing Himself To Her Father

Bernice King called out the former President for claiming he drew bigger crowds than Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic "I Have A Dream" speech.

Bernice King, the daughter of the late civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., dragged former President Donald Trump for comparing his rallies to her father’s historic “I Have A Dream” speech. 

During an Aug. 8 press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump compared the size of his Jan. 6, 2021, rally crowds to the crowd that came out to Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. 

Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” Speech was delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963, during the civil rights movement’s March on Washington. In a call for equality, 100 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, King gave voice to the defining ideals of the civil rights movement and was later a galvanizing agent for monumental legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the following year.

For Trump, his Jan. 6 speech was just as important and had just as many–if not more–attendees. Trump said, “Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me. If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech. And you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people. If not, we had more.”

He continued, “Look at it, and you look at the picture of his crowd, my crowd, we actually had more people.” 

Trump claims his crowds are larger than Martin Luther King Jr.’s pic.twitter.com/fuGPWZW66P — Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 8, 2024

However, this is not the case. The Root reports that Dr. King’s speech brought out nearly 250,000 people , but Trump’s popular “Stop the Steal” speech after losing the 2020 presidential election had 53,000 people in attendance.

Trump’s inaccurate comments stirred up social media, prompting King’s daughter, 61-year-old lawyer Bernice King, to address Trump’s claims. 

She wrote on X, “Absolutely not true. I really wish that people would stop using my father to support fallacy.” 

Absolutely not true. I really wish that people would stop using my father to support fallacy. https://t.co/yByOqt4JV2 pic.twitter.com/OWsSsppACv — Be A King (@BerniceKing) August 8, 2024

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People also responded to Trump’s claims about his supporters. On social media, the NAACP posted a photo of the 1963 crowd at the “I Have A Dream” speech side-by-side to the crowd at Trump’s speech. The post was captioned, “Donald Trump just said that he had a bigger crowd on January 6 than Dr. Martin Luther King did when he delivered ‘I Have A Dream.’ …Not only is that completely false, but here’s what is more important: MLK’s speech was about democracy. Trump’s was about tearing it down.”

Donald Trump just said that he had a bigger crowd on January 6 than Dr. Martin Luther King did when he delivered “I Have A Dream.” …Not only is that completely false, but here’s what is more important: MLK’s speech was about democracy. Trump’s was about tearing it down. pic.twitter.com/cyjmztKy1Y — NAACP (@NAACP) August 8, 2024

RELATED CONTENT: Guess All Black Men ‘Look Alike’ To Trump. Former Politician Says He Was On That Helicopter With Trump, Not Willie Brown

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Bernice King Responds To Trump Comparing His Numbers to Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have A Dream’ Speech

Bernice King has responded to former President Donald Trump’s comments on Thursday where he referenced her father saying that his speech brought the same numbers as her King’s iconic “I have a dream” speech.

The civil rights leader’s daughter took to X to release her own response, “Absolutely not true,” she wrote. “I really wish that people would stop using my father to support fallacy.”

Absolutely not true. I really wish that people would stop using my father to support fallacy. https://t.co/yByOqt4JV2 pic.twitter.com/OWsSsppACv — Be A King (@BerniceKing) August 8, 2024

During a news conference at Mar-a-Largo, Trump said, “Nobody has spoken to crowds bigger than me.” He added, “If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people.”

Trump’s comment was prompted when asked if his transition of power was considered peaceful despite the Jan. 6 insurrection that followed.

The former president maintains his stance that those arrested for participating in the insurrection have been treated unfairly.

According to NBC News , “The congressional Jan. 6 committee pegged Trump’s crowd at 53,000 people, about one-fifth of the 250,000 who were estimated to be at King’s famous address from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.”

The NAACP also responded via X saying, “Not only is that completely false, but here’s what is more important: MLK’s speech was about democracy. Trump’s was about tearing it down.” In their post, they published side-by-side images of both speeches where the viewer can see a considerable difference in audience.

Donald Trump just said that he had a bigger crowd on January 6 than Dr. Martin Luther King did when he delivered “I Have A Dream.” …Not only is that completely false, but here’s what is more important: MLK’s speech was about democracy. Trump’s was about tearing it down. pic.twitter.com/cyjmztKy1Y — NAACP (@NAACP) August 8, 2024

Since she was announced to be running on the Democratic ticket, the Trump campaign has focused on Vice President Kamala Harris’ race, most famously during his appearance at the National Association for Black Journalists (NABJ) convention in Chicago. During his conference at Mar-a-Largo, Trump said his confidence in the Black vote is beginning to waver.

“It changes around a little bit. I’m getting other voters,” Trump said of the Black vote. “Perhaps you know, I was doing well with Black voters and I still am. I seem to be doing very well with Black males.” He isn’t as sure of himself with others, “It’s possible that I won’t do as well with Black women, but I do seem to do very well with other segments,” he added.

King has had to respond to numerous references made in the public about her father. Among them, Amy Schumer most recently in conjunction with the conflict in Palestine and Israel.

? Amy: Certainly, my father was against antisemitism, as am I. He also believed militarism (along with racism and poverty) to be among the interconnected Triple Evils. I am certain he would call for Israel’s bombing of Palestinians to cease, for hostages to be released… https://t.co/haahcqcuAf — Be A King (@BerniceKing) November 1, 2023

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Kevin McCarthy Urges Trump To Stop Obsessing Over Crowd Sizes

Senior Reporter, HuffPost

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has some advice for Donald Trump : ditch his focus on the large crowds attending the rallies for his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris .

In a Monday interview on Fox News , McCarthy said Harris was the “perfect person to run against” because, he claimed, she is “the biggest flip-flop” on policy, but indicated the former president is squandering the opportunity.

The new Democratic Party ticket appears to have generated a groundswell of support, as witnessed by around 15,000 people turning up to a rally near Detroit last Wednesday.

Trump on Sunday claimed a photo from the event had been AI-generated — a suggestion that was quickly and widely debunked — and continued to rant about crowds at his own rallies.

“You’ve got to make this race not on personalities,” McCarthy said, apparently reflecting wider GOP frustration with Trump’s recent tactics. “Stop questioning the size of her crowds and start questioning her position, when it comes to: What did she do as (California) attorney general on crime? Question what did she do when she was supposed to take care of the border as a tsar?”

On Friday, addressing reporters at his Florida estate, the Republican presidential nominee was at pains to suggest he was drawing large crowds on the campaign trail amid the buzz surrounding the Harris rallies.

He went so far as to compare the crowd size at the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, to the audience for Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech.

His fixation continued Sunday when he posted the baseless AI claim on his social media platform, Truth Social .

“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST! She was turned in by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake crowd picture, but there was nobody there, later confirmed by the reflection of the mirror like finish on the Vice Presidential Plane,” he wrote.

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