On August 28th, 1963, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his 'I Have a Dream' speech to 250,000 Americans gathered at the Lincoln Memorial. Far from dismissing America's past, King invoked it, calling the nation to fulfill the promissory note of freedom written in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Key Takeaways

• 250,000 Americans marched on Washington on August 28, 1963, calling for jobs, school integration, and voting rights for black Americans

• King was the last speaker of the day; millions watched on live television

• King rooted his vision in America's founding documents, calling the Declaration and Constitution a 'promissory note' of freedom for all Americans

• The improvised 'I Have a Dream' section drew on language King had used in past speeches

• King closed by quoting Isaiah, expanding his vision beyond civil rights to the freedom of all humanity

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Questions & Answers (FAQ)

Q1: When and where was the 'I Have a Dream' speech delivered?

Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his 'I Have a Dream' speech on August 28th, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. He was the final speaker at the March on Washington, which drew 250,000 people calling for jobs, school integration, and voting rights for black Americans. Millions watched the speech live on national television.

Q2: What did King mean by the 'promissory note'?

King argued that in writing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, America's founders had issued a promissory note, a guarantee of the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans, including black men. He called on America to honor that promise, framing the civil rights movement not as a rejection of the American founding but as its fulfillment.

Q3: Was the 'I Have a Dream' part scripted?

The famous 'I Have a Dream' section was largely improvised. Though King had used the phrase in earlier speeches, it was not in the prepared text for the March on Washington address. The gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who was seated nearby, called out to King during his speech to 'tell them about the dream', and he set aside his script to deliver the improvised climax that became one of the most famous passages in American oratory.

Q4: How did King use the Bible in his speech?

King quoted from the book of Isaiah, 'every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low', to expand his vision beyond civil rights to a universal revelation of God's majesty. He also drew on the language of an old Negro spiritual for his closing: 'Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.' In this way King wove together American founding ideals, the Gettysburg Address, and biblical prophecy into a single vision of freedom.

The March and the Moment

"I would simply like to say that I think this has been one of the great days of America, and I think this march will go down as the greatest demonstration for freedom and human dignity ever held in the United States." On August 28th, 1963, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech to 250,000 Americans gathered before the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. For 100 years since the end of the Civil War, black Americans had suffered under segregation laws. That century had followed an even longer period of American slavery.

Yet, as King's iconic speech unfolded, rather than dismiss America's past, King invoked it. King's dream of freedom was founded on America's beginnings and on the yet more enduring sources that ordered the founders' vision for the republic. Martin Luther King Jr. was the most renowned national leader in the civil rights movement. A Baptist preacher, he became famous for his practice of nonviolent activism. In 1957, King helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, one of several civil rights organizations spearheading the March on Washington in 1963. On the day of the march, peaceful protesters walked the one-mile route from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial. The 250,000 freedom marchers held signs calling for jobs, the integration of schools, and voting rights for black Americans.

Once gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, the audience listened to a long lineup of speeches by civil rights leaders, including labor unionist A. Philip Randolph and future congressman John Lewis. King was the last speaker of the day. Fearing the television cameramen would no longer be filming in the late afternoon, most of the orators avoided speaking near the end of the event. They were wrong. In fact, millions of Americans watched King's closing speech on live television. The promise King invoked is rooted in the founding language we cover in our episode on the Declaration of Independence.

A Promissory Note

He began his speech by calling the march the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. King invited his listeners to remember Abraham Lincoln and adopted the language of the 16th president's Gettysburg Address: "Five score years ago, a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand today signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves." King's recollection of Lincoln, plus the immediate setting provided by the Lincoln Memorial, contributed to one of the main themes of his speech: that America's past provided a good foundation for the betterment of its future.

In writing the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, King explained, the founders had issued a promissory note, a guarantee of the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans. Yes, black men as well as white men. Now, it was time for the founders' promise of freedom to be realized for Americans who still waited for their rights to be secured. King called that fulfillment a sacred obligation, and one he now called on Americans to fulfill at this hallowed spot. King argued not for the abandonment of the American founding and its promise of American freedom, but rather for its fulfillment. As Lincoln knew that the proposition of freedom must be renewed by defeating the Confederacy and freeing the slaves, so King knew that segregation and discrimination must also end in America, furthering the renewal of that liberty. The contradiction between that promise and American slavery is the subject of our episode on America's paradox of slavery and freedom.

I Have a Dream, and Let Freedom Ring

The climactic "I Have a Dream" portion of King's address was improvised, although King had used the phrase in past speeches. Once again, King relied on a distinctly American vision, rooting his hope for the future in the promise of the past: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." King went on to reference the book of Isaiah.

In so doing, he expanded the scope of his vision so that freedom for black Americans would not merely be a fulfillment of the American founding, but also another revelation of God's majesty: "I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted. Every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." At the very end of his speech, after collecting both American and biblical imagery in his ascending finish, King broadened the scope of his vision once more. In this powerful climax, King argued that freedom in America related directly to freedom for all humankind: "Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside.

Let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: 'Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.'" A century earlier, another civil rights movement had begun at the gathering we cover in our episode on the Seneca Falls Convention.