Martin Luther King: The Speech of the Century

Dr D. Chandraratna

It was sixty years ago that Martin Luther King (MLK) stood on the steps of the Lincoln memorial in front a sea of people estimated to be around 250,000, who had gathered for a march on Washington under the slogan, ‘Jobs and Freedom,’ gave voice to his dream.

‘Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. And, I say to you today, my friends, that despite the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream…, that one day this nation will rise up and live out the meaning of its creed. I have a dream ,that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character…, I have a dream that one day, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers…, and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last, free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last’.

Andrew Young, US Congressman (1973-77), US Ambassador to UN 1977-79), and Mayor of Atlanta for 8 years, now aged 91, a confidante of MLK recalls that “I do not know how it happened, but it was meant to be. It set forth a movement that changed not only America, but it changed the world. It lifted the crowd to such a crescendo that it really lifted the nation. And it went worldwide’. Penguin Books, records that no public figure of his generation could match the skill with which he made a mastery of the spoken word the servant of his cause. Andrew Young says, ‘if there was any disciple that lived out the faith that Gandhi and Jesus expressed in humanity it was Martin Luther King Jr’. Andrew Young, one of the few surviving members of the inner circle worked with King through the 50’s and 60’s until the day King was killed by an assassin on the 4 th April 1968.

King took to the podium on that day, despite one of his advisors, Wyatt Walker, remonstrating with him not to deploy his ‘I have a dream’, speech which he had made mention three times before. He was told that it had to be limited to 10 minutes and being the 16 th in the line; if he spoke any longer Walker threatened to cut the microphone off. The sound system had been sabotaged the previous night which Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General, ordered the Army corps to fix.

The crusades like the March on Washington after Selma, Montgomery Alabama and Birmingham had made many political enemies and King was targeted by the FBI, labelled Communist, ‘to be dealt with.’ The possibility of violence and crackdown was expected.

History records that when King started Wyatt Walker would say, ‘Oh shit! he is coming out with the dream’.

His crowd was made up of activists, students, celebrities, in the looming presence of Abraham Lincoln seated in the grand memorial behind. King was the last speaker in a line of sixteen and Andrew Young recalls, ‘They did not expect his remarks to get such media coverage. Neither could they ever conceive those parts of it still reverberate among so many after 60 years later. ‘It lifted the crowd to such a crescendo, it really lifted the nation, and it went worldwide’.

Andrew Young in a recent interview given from his hometown in Louisiana says that King and his inner circle, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi in his nonviolent Satyagraha demonstrations used the same method against poverty, racism, and segregation. Just as Gandhi, King was driven by a spiritual fervour to redeem the soul of America from the evils of racism and discrimination. Gandhi’s success was attributed to the nonviolent campaigns, marches and sit-ins and non-cooperation with evil. King as with Gandhi was of the view that ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth will leave everybody blind and toothless.

In the final years of his life the protest movement which initially was one in pursuit of dignity expanded to a broader struggle for equality of opportunity in employment, housing employment and poverty. He campaigned against the Vietnam war. The FBI pursued to destroy King by tarnishing his image but to King his struggle was not about personal piety but a project of broader social justice. The protest marches had the desired effect and John F Kennedy, initially reluctant to spend political time on civil rights made political the moral case which compelled Lyndon Johnson to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. King was never confrontationist but being a pastor was very persuasive. Lyndon Johnson stated, ‘there is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights for millions of (coloured) Americans, but there is cause for hope and for faith in our democracy in passing these two Acts’.