“I have a Dream” by Martin Luther King

1. Martin Luther King:

Martin Luther King Jr. was a social activist and Baptist minister who played a key role in the
American civil rights movement from the mid-1950s until his assassination in 1968. King sought
equality and human rights for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and all
victims of injustice through peaceful protest. He was the driving force behind watershed events
such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the 1963 March on Washington, which helped bring
about such landmark legislation as the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. King was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and is remembered each year on Martin Luther King Jr.
Day, a U.S. federal holiday since 1986.
2. Introduction:
"I Have a Dream" is a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist and
Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
on August 28, 1963. In the speech, King called for civil and economic rights and an end to
racism in the United States. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of
the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the speech was one of the most famous moments of
the civil rights movement and among the most iconic speeches in American history.
Beginning with a reference to the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared millions of
slaves free in 1863, King said "one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free". Toward the
end of the speech, King departed from his prepared text for a partly improvised peroration on
the theme "I have a dream.

3. Background:
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was partly intended to demonstrate mass
support for the civil rights legislation proposed by President John F. Kennedy in June. Martin
Luther King and other leaders, therefore, agreed to keep their speeches calm, also, to avoid
provoking the civil disobedience which had become the hallmark of the Civil Rights Movement.
King originally designed his speech as a homage to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address,
timed to correspond with the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation.

4. The speech
King had been preaching about dreams since 1960, when he gave a speech to the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called "The Negro and the
American Dream". This speech discusses the gap between the American dream and reality. In
1961, he spoke of the Civil Rights Movement and student activists' "dream" of equality—"the
American Dream ... a dream as yet unfulfilled”. On November 27, 1962, King gave a speech at
Booker T. Washington High School in Rocky Mount, North Carolina and while parts of the text
had been moved around, large portions were identical, including the "I have a dream" refrain.
Кing had also delivered a speech with the "I have a dream" refrain in Detroit, in June 1963
before the Great Walk to Freedom on June 23 the same year.
The March on Washington Speech, known as "I Have a Dream Speech", has been shown to
have had several versions, written at several different times. It has no single version draft, but is
an amalgamation of several drafts, and was originally called "Normalcy, Never Again". The focus
on "I have a dream" comes through the speech's delivery. Toward the end of its delivery, noted
African-American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson shouted to King from the crowd, "Tell them
about the dream, Martin."[King departed from his prepared remarks and started "preaching"
improvisationally, punctuating his points with "I have a dream."
King's speech invokes pivotal documents in American history, including the Declaration of
Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the United States Constitution. Early in his
speech, King alludes to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address by saying "Five score years
ago ..." In reference to the abolition of slavery, King says: "It came as a joyous daybreak to end
the long night of their captivity." Early in his speech, King urges his audience to seize the
moment; "Now is the time" is repeated three times in the sixth paragraph. The often quoted
phrase "I have a dream" is repeated eight times. Among the most quoted lines of the speech
are "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!" King was the sixteenth out of eighteen people to speak that day, according to the
official program.
The ideas in the speech reflect King's social experiences of ethnocentric abuse,
mistreatment, and exploitation of black people. The speech draws upon appeals to America's
myths as a nation founded to provide freedom and justice to all people, and then reinforces
and transcends those secular mythologies by placing them within a spiritual context by arguing
that racial justice is also in accord with God's will.