I Have A Dream Speech

Before last week I had never heard this speech in its entirety. The emotionality, rationality, spirituality, and patriotism of the speech are woven so richly together that it seems that King takes the nation's hopes, ideals, and skepticisms and knits them into his dream of racial equality. As you watch, King sticks very closely to his notes until the very end, and then history begins happen. Right after he encourages the audience to go back to their neighborhoods and peacefully fight for the end of segregation and for better schools for black children is when he begans to vere from his prepared speech. Nothing he says was new to his followers, he'd been preaching like this for years in the sanctuaries of southern churches, but is new to the nation. He goes back and forth seamlessly quoting the Constitution to "Let Freedom Ring" to the Bible to negro spirituals resonating each time with self-evident truths of each person's equal claim to dignity. His vision is still moving today because so much of what he envisioned for us in this speech is yet to come to fruition. I just wanted to share this video because it should not be put on the shelf as an interesting historical event, but as a call to action for us all.