Clarence Jones, who assisted the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have A Dream Speech,”A panel of Television Critics Association members in 2013 was told by the speaker how the most famous part came about spontaneously.
It was August 28, 1963. King was speaking to hundreds upon thousands of Lincoln Memorial attendees, with millions more watching TV. Then, suddenly, Mahalia Jackson appeared. Here is Jones’s statement:
Very few people know — most people do not know — that the speech that he gave was not the speech that he had intended to give. … As he was reading from the text of his prepared remarks, there came a point when Mahalia Jackson, who was sitting on the platform, said, “Tell them about the dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream.”
Now I have often speculated that she had heard him talk in other places… and make reference to the dream. He had very explicitly mentioned the dream on June 23, 1963 in Detroit.
When Mahalia shouted to him, I was standing about 50 feet behind him… and I saw it happening in real time. He simply took his speech and moved it to left side of lectern. … And I said to somebody standing next to me: “These people don’t know it, but they’re about to go to church.”
I said this because I could clearly see his body language shift from the rear. He was reading, almost like he was giving a lecture. Then he switched to his Baptist preacher mode.
Had there been anyone else — anyone else — who had shouted anything to him, I think he would have been a little taken aback. I’m not so sure he would have departed from the text of his speech. However, Mahalia Jackson was his favourite gospel singer. It was almost like Mahalia had been given a mandate to reply.
Watch the speech below.
Also read:11 Martin Luther King Jr. Memes that are Most Inspirational