Summary Overview

On August 28, 1963, nearly a quarter of a million people arrived in the District of Columbia for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The marchers on that day in 1963 had been summoned by the veteran African American labor leader A. Philip Randolph to urge the federal government to broaden economic opportunities for low-income families and to pressure Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act, which was then being debated. Delegations of civil rights supporters from cities across the United States thus joined together for a massive one-day protest. Amid the day’s various events and speeches, one stood out: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech “I Have a Dream.” His oration eclipsed the remarks of all other speakers that day and is among the most quoted American public addresses. “I Have a Dream” has come to epitomize the aspirations of the modern civil rights movement. In it, King reminded his listeners of African Americans’ legitimate grievances and promised that they would not rest until full equality was won. As he neared the end of his speech, King departed from his prepared text to deliver his most memorable words: “I have a dream,” he thundered, in the powerful preaching cadence of the black Baptist tradition. Using a series of riveting images, King shared his vision of a country free of racial hatred, in which black and white Americans would live as equals.

Defining Moment

In 1941 A. Philip Randolph, the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, threatened to lead one hundred thousand African Americans down Pennsylvania Avenue, forcing President Franklin D. Roosevelt to act against racial discrimination in defense industries.

As civil rights protests gained momentum in the early 1960s, Randolph revived the idea of a march on Washington. He maintained that a massive assembly of black citizens was needed to prod a reluctant President Kennedy into action. Randolph’s idea initially drew a lukewarm response from other black leaders—until Martin Luther King, Jr., lent his support.

King had just finished a successful campaign to desegregate stores and lunch counters in Birmingham, Alabama. Nationally televised scenes of police dogs and fire hoses battering youthful demonstrators roused public sympathy behind the crusade for equal rights.After Kennedy submitted his civil rights bill to Congress, the event was renamed the “March for Jobs and Freedom,” the emphasis shifted from economic issues to support for the proposed legislation.

President Kennedy tried to convince march organizers that a mass protest could create opposition to the bill. When Randolph and King declared their determination to go ahead with the demonstration, the president offered the assistance of federal agencies to ensure that the march proceeded smoothly. In the weeks leading up to the event, Randolph’s chief aide, Bayard Rustin, worked around the clock to nail down the smallest details.

As the huge crowd congregated on either side of the memorial’s Reflecting Pool, the speakers took their turns at the podium in the shadow of the Great Emancipator’s statue. John Lewis, the young head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, delivered the day’s most militant address, calling for a “great revolution” to “splinter the segregated south into a thousand pieces.” Then, Randolph introduced King, whose address sounded the climactic final note for the day’s celebration

Author Biography

Martin Luther King, Jr., was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, where both his father and grandfather pastored the Ebenezer Baptist Church. At the age of fifteen he entered Morehouse College to study sociology. He prepared for the ministry at Crozier Theological Seminary, in Pennsylvania, and then earned a doctorate in philosophy from Boston University. While in Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, an aspiring concert singer from Marion, Alabama.

In 1953 King returned to the South to become pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. When Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger, King emerged as the leader of a year-long boycott of city buses. His application of Gandhian nonviolent resistance to fight Jim Crow laws and the successful outcome of the Montgomery protest thrust him into the national spotlight. In 1957 he founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to carry his fight for civil rights to other southern communities. Over the next decade King remained at the forefront of the rapidly growing civil rights movement. In 1963 he led a campaign of civil disobedience against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama—one of the most violent southern cities. His “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” written following his arrest while leading a demonstration, is an eloquent defense of his nonviolent tactics.

King’s “I Have a Dream” Speech at the March on Washington helped build public support for the landmark Civil Rights Act that was passed by Congress in 1964. In turn, the Voting Rights Act that became law the following year was enacted largely because of his efforts to dramatize the disenfranchisement of African American citizens in Selma, Alabama. In 1966 King turned his attention to the North, where he attacked slum conditions and segregated housing in Chicago. King’s growing opposition to the Vietnam War put him in the front ranks of the antiwar movement. At the time of his assassination in 1968, he was preparing to lead the Poor People’s Campaign, a multiracial effort to spur government action against poverty.

King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. In the United States, his birthday is commemorated by a national holiday, and his bust stands in the U.S. Capitol.

Document Analysis

After a brief salutation, King reminds his listeners of the symbolic importance of the ground they occupy. King’s use of the archaic “fivescore years ago” is an obvious echo of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. He briefly mentions the triple problems of segregation, discrimination, and poverty that face black Americans and emphasizes the long gap between the Emancipation Proclamation’s promise of equality and the lingering reality of pervasive racism.

Using the words of the Declaration of Independence, King says African Americans are seeking only the rights guaranteed to all citizens. He accuses the United States of bad faith in delivering its pledge of freedom.He concludes this passage on a hopeful note, stating his belief that the United States will soon honor its commitment to its black citizens.

King asserts that America cannot afford to wait any longer. Many critics were accusing the civil rights movement of impatience, of pressing too hard for reform. King rejects this argument, underscoring the urgency of African American demands for equal rights by reiterating “now is the time” four times. He threatens that “there will be neither rest nor tranquility” until these demands are granted.

King also admonishes his fellow African Americans to refrain from bitterness and a desire for revenge and emphasizes the need for continued nonviolent tactics. He acknowledges the presence of white supporters, estimated to be about 10 percent of the march’s participants. He insists white allies are essential for the movement’s success.

King then resumes a more militant tone, listing some of the top priorities of the civil rights movement: an end to police brutality, access to public accommodations, the elimination of housing segregation, the removal of Jim Crow signs, voting rights, and meaningful participation in political affairs. He ends this litany by paraphrasing the Old Testament prophet Amos in saying that blacks will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

King next turns his attention to those battle-scarred veterans of the civil rights movement in the audience, saluting their sacrifices and courage. Some of them have questioned the effectiveness of Gandhian civil disobedience, but King encourages them to keep faith in nonviolence.

King then begins the most well-known portion of the speech, in which he outlines his dream for America. In the first glimpse of his dream, King refers again to the Declaration of Independence, asserting his belief that one day Americans truly will honor the words “all men are created equal.” He foresees a society where the barriers of segregation dividing the races no longer will be enforced—where blacks and whites will be able to sit down and eat together.

King’s dream also extends to the state of Mississippi, home to some of the most violent defenders of white supremacy, asserting that Mississippi will become “an oasis of freedom and justice.”

King next makes the dream very personal by including his four young children. He maintains that one day, instead of being considered inferior beings and denied opportunities to develop their full human potential because of the color of their skin, they will be judged by “the content of their character.”

Alabama will also be transformed in this renewed nation, offering a vision of a time when “little black boys and black girls” will not be isolated from their white peers. Not only will they see each other as equals, but they will also join hands “as sisters and brothers.” The physical intimacy King suggests by this simple act was no doubt offensive to rabid racists but presented a powerful image of innocent fraternity to those in his audience.

Quoting the book of Isaiah, he recalls the prophet’s description of the kingdom of God. King embraces the prophetic role, testifying that the quest for civil rights is part of God’s divine plan for America and equating the coming victory over segregation with the arrival of the millennium.

At this point King briefly returns to his prepared text for a few sentences affirming his faith in this vision; it gives him confidence that America can overcome its bitter divisions. Then, improvising again, he claims that the knowledge that “we will be free one day” is enough to sustain him and other civil rights activists through the difficult battles that undoubtedly lie ahead.

King continues spontaneously, describing a coming era when “all of God’s children” will win their freedom. On that day, African Americans will be able to sing the patriotic hymn “America the Beautiful,” confident at last that the verses apply to them. He summons a vision of the day when freedom will ring “from every village and every hamlet” and when this message will be embraced by “all of God’s children.” He offers a closing image of blacks and whites, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics all joining hands in brotherhood. Finally King invokes an African American spiritual for his benediction: “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

Essential Themes

The final seven minutes of this speech made King’s speech a triumph of American oratory. These are the words that schoolchildren memorize, because, in author Drew Hanson’s words, King “added something completely fresh to the way that Americans thought about race and civil rights. He gave the nation a vision of what it could look like if all things were made new.” There was little in King’s rhetoric about the need for civil rights that was truly new. Activists, for a over a century, dating back to the days of the abolition movement, had pointed out the disparity between the nation’s ideals and the reality of slavery and racial inequality. However, coming on the heels of the Birmingham campaign, as well as sit-ins and boycotts, and marches around the country, the familiar rhetoric took on a new urgency.

The immediate audience for King’s speech was the approximately 250,000 people gathered on August 28, 1963, in front of the Lincoln Memorial and around the nearby Reflecting Pool. Additional millions listened on the radio and watched on television. King’s words were aimed at all Americans. For black listeners they carried a message of hope with the promise that the goals of freedom and equality were within reach. For whites, King articulated the aspirations of African Americans, placing them squarely in the context of the American dream. Each year, on the national holiday commemorating his life, King’s message is passed on to new generations.

Bibliography and Additional Reading

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