Talk:I Have a Dream

Dr. King's later thoughts on the speech

Having quickly glanced through the article, I've noticed that there is an absence regarding Dr. King's later thoughts on the speech (particularly those he reiterated in his 1967 interview with Sander Vanocur). To summarize, he said that his 'dream' has "...at many points turned into a nightmare..." and regarded the speech as overly optimistic, in light of the resistances to further civil rights advancements and the Vietnam War, both of which he viewed as parts of or results of the evils (his 'Triple Evils' as he called them) he thought the USA was complicit in. All in all, he had essentially disavowed his speech - prior to directly commenting on the speech, he mentioned that integration as a sole focus of the Civil Rights movement wasn't enough without a "revolution of values" and quoted James Baldwin, saying "What advantage is there in being integrated into a burning house?" The interview can be found here. With all of that said - considering this interview, as well as Dr. King's later stances prior to the end of his life, I believe this should be noted in the article under the 'Legacy' section. Also something of note is how it is often misconstrued by modern-day conservatives as an advocacy of solving racism via a 'colorblind' approach to society (rather than seeing 'colorblindness' as an end goal to strive towards). I can understand the latter not being included but I think it is important for the article to include King's own later thoughts on the speech as a good way to show what he thought about the progress made during that time. Kyle Tatum (talk) 05:27, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

The sentence "Taylor Branch writes that King later said he grasped at the "first run of oratory" that came to him, not knowing if Jackson's words ever reached him.[7]" is used twice in completely different parts of the document.

someone should probably fix that 65.199.249.162 (talk) 00:07, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Speech sound recording missing

The link is broken. Wallby (talk) 10:21, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

• Do you mean the wgbh.org link that's just below the info box? It redirects me to a page about the speech, but I can't seem to play the audio (but maybe that's just me). - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 00:25, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

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"I Have a Dream" is a public speech that was delivered by the American civil rights movement activist and Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. In the speech, which was delivered to more than 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., King called for civil and economic rights and an end to legalized racism in the United States. He noted the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which declared millions of slaves free, but said that "one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free". The speech is regarded as one of the most famous moments of the civil rights movement and among the most iconic speeches in American history. This photograph, from the collection of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, shows King shortly after concluding his speech, waving to the crowd assembled around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The Washington Monument is visible in the background.

Photograph credit: unknown

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