Tuesday, November 27, 1962: 'I Have a Dream'

Speaking in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gives a speech using the "I Have a Dream" construction, nine months before his famous speech at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. (King is also said to have used the phrase even earlier, including in a speech in Albany, Georgia, on November 16, but the Rocky Mount speech is the earliest known recording, thanks to the efforts of W. Jason Miller, whose book is linked below.) News accounts of the speech did not mention "I Have a Dream"; it quoted King as saying: "Old Man Segregation is on his death bed. The only thing now is how costly the South will make his funeral."

-- Photo from www.waymarking.com

* Audio excerpts from speech:  @
* "King Urges 'Nonviolence' " (Associated Press, November 28): @
* Marker description from North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program: @

* "Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric" (W. Jason Miller, 2015): @

* "Making a Way Out of No Way" (Wolfgang Mieder, 2010): @

* "The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech that Inspired a Nation" (Drew D. Hansen, 2005): @

* "A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." (edited by Clayborne Carson and Kris Shepard, 2001): @ 

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