The History Of An Idea
“I Have a Dream” is regarded as one of the most influential speeches in the history of mankind and was given the best speech of 20th century in America. The speech was delivered by Martin Luther King Jr., who was an activist against the discrimination and racism of the Negro Americans, on 28th August, 1963. The speech was delivered at the footsteps of Lincoln Memorial and to the audience of more than 200,000 who wanted their freedom rights in order to work and live independently in USA. The racism against the blacks has been a continuous part of the history where they are not only denied proper citizenship rights but also were not given competitive jobs. This led them to come out on streets and make their condition known to the government that there are some people living in America who need their attention, attention towards the Declaration of Independence which promised the freedom to every person living in this country. The situation of the blacks was never the same after this speech as government and other powerful resources started to take this problem seriously because of the expected riots that might have started afterwards as they knew of the injustice they have been committing for so long.
The name of this speech, “I Have a Dream” had been prompted by Mahalia Jackson’s cry, “Tell them about the dream, Martin” and since then it has become a trademark for all the people regardless of their color against the brutality of those who are in power. The speech also included some sections from the speech Martin delivered in Detroit, 1963.
This paper looks at various aspects of the speech in order to clearly depict the history of events and nature of audience to whom this speech was delivered.
Martin Luther King Jr. was born on 15th January, 1929. He was a clergyman and a Baptist (Abernathy, 1989). He soon became vulnerable to the situation of African Americans and started his endeavor to end racism and discrimination from the society. As he was eloquent and respectful towards all the religions, he soon became a prominent leader of Afro-American Civil Rights Movement. His first important activity was during the Montgomery Bus Boycott in which he critically stood up with the black community against the segregation of the public transit buses where they had predetermined seats on the buses and were not allowed to sit anywhere else even if they were empty, happened in 1955 (David, 1987). During this time, blacks were not given good jobs according to their qualifications; rather they were given low level jobs which were not enough to feed their families. Martin during his struggle emphasized on the Declaration of Independence, which obliged equal rights for all the community including blacks. The government was never keen to indulge into this matter and therefore with time his commitment towards this cause increased even more. Being an activist, he was still non violent all his life. His struggle and teachings were all peaceful and emphasized blacks to perform civil obedience rather than being violent. He also founded the Southern Christian Leadership conference in 1957 whose objective was to solidify the southern blacks at one point and increase the power of black churches to form non violent protest against the government (Abernathy, 1989). He was predominantly chosen as the leader of this organization which soon became actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement.
He was pretty much influenced with the stature of Gandhi and visited his family in 1959 in order to get information about the working of Gandhi against the British Empire during Indian Subcontinent Independence.
In 1963, the movement became much more active with Martin visiting different cities and organizing speeches. The speech in Detroit and then in Washington DC are considered as cornerstone of this movement. He also delivered his famous speech, “I Have a Dream” in Washington DC in 1963 which alarmed the government to take serious note of the blacks or get ready for riots that could harm the society and economy of country. In 1964 he was honored with Youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner for his work towards ending of racial segregation and discrimination due to color by non violent means. He was later found to be against the poverty and worked for the poor to get them established by pointing out faults in the system for the government. He was also against the Vietnam War because according to him this wasn’t their war and killing people was never the right way to progress democracy. His work, however, was not always praised by the white population and he was always confronted with violent white hate groups like Ku Klux Klan, though he was pretty much unharmed during these confrontations because of his abilities to convince others that he had a strong statement with full justifications. However, he was soon assassinated in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee where he was protesting with the black sanitary workers who were denied salary. Martin Luther King Jr. has been posthumously awarded different national awards for his work including Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004. To identify his role in shaping the future of the country, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established in 1986 as a national holiday.
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