Reflections on Martin Luther King Jr.’s Vision of the American Dream

“I was not there at the Memorial in the sweltering heat and humidity of Washington. I saw it through the magic of our black-and-white Muntz television set in my family’s Italian tavern in Cleveland, Ohio.”

I can remember being a 16 year old watching Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963. I was not there at the Memorial in the sweltering heat and humidity of Washington. I saw it through the magic of our black-and-white Muntz television set in my family’s Italian tavern in Cleveland, Ohio. I still see myself perched on the edge of the pool table in the bar area of the tavern watching the march, the speakers, and then King and his speech with its now world-famous refrain, “I have a dream…”

Tragically, the Pew Research Center reports declining percentages of Americans saying they have read or heard “a great deal” about the speech. Overall, 60% of Americans say they have read or heard a great deal about it. Nearly seven out of ten (68%) of those 65 and older are likely to say that. That drops to around half (53%) for those ages 18 to 29, with 16% in that group saying they had not heard much or anything about the speech—the largest percentage of any age group.

With more Americans forgetting (or never learning) about King’s speech, the time is right to review King’s more general views on the American Dream, which are found in more than this one memorable speech. The recent biography King: A Life by Jonathan Eig recounts that “…a blueprint for ‘I Have a Dream’” can be traced to April 17, 1944, when King entered a statewide public speaking contest in Dublin, Georgia. His speech that day was titled “The Negro and the Constitution” and drew significant portions from remarks given in 1928 by Henry F. Coleman titled “On the Philosophy of the Race Problem (From a Negro’s Point of View).” King’s speech that day called for “a new birth of freedom” and outlined a vision for a United States of America that transcended the racial animosity of his day.