"I Have a Dream," the speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. that was delivered on August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington, was a call for equality and freedom that became one of the defining moments of the civil rights movement and one of the most iconic speeches in American history.
Some 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., for the March on Washington. The one-day event both protested racial discrimination and encouraged the passage of civil rights legislation; at the time, the Civil Rights Act was being discussed in Congress. The march featured various speeches as well as musical performances before King, a celebrated orator, appeared as the final official speaker; A. Philip Randolph and Benjamin Mays ended the proceedings with a pledge and a benediction, respectively.
Early in his prepared speech, King referenced Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address with “Five score years ago….” He then spoke about the Emancipation Proclamation, which “end[ed] the long night of their [slaves’] captivity.” However, he continued by noting that African Americans were still “not free” and that they were “crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.”
According to various observers, however, as King neared the end, the address was failing to achieve the resonance of his more noteworthy speeches. As activist John Lewis noted, King himself could “sense that he was falling short.” Perhaps that compelled singer Mahalia Jackson to call out, imploring him to tell the crowd about “the dream.” It was a theme he had used at earlier events but had been advised not to use in Washington, with one aide calling it “trite.” At Jackson’s urging, however, King abandoned his prepared text and launched into a discussion of his dreams, adopting “the stance of a Baptist preacher.”
"I say to you today, my friends, 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 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 that…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."
King’s improvisations seemed to strike a chord with the crowd, many of whom called out words of encouragement. The speech built to its emotional conclusion, which was borrowed from a Black spiritual: “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.” Largely based on King’s extemporizations, the speech was widely considered the greatest of the 20th century, noted for its power and resonance.
With its universal appeal, “I have a dream” became an enduring phrase both in the United States and elsewhere. In addition, many believed the speech helped secure passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
Reprinted from Britannica.com