‘I have a dream’

~ beetleypete

With all the thoughts and reflections about Martin Luther King going around the blogs, and on the TV news, I was reminded of my post from 2013. I was a fairly new blogger back then, and it is interesting to me that it only received nine likes, and a few comments.
But some of you who liked and commented are still around, which pleased me to see.
For all the new followers since, I think you might get something from viewing and reading this legendary speech.

beetleypete

Fifty years ago this week, I was eleven years old. I saw a news report on TV, about a huge march of protest, in Washington D.C., in America. Martin Luther King Jr. was addressing this huge crowd, the largest I could remember seeing, in my short life up to that time. I knew a little about the plight of black people in the USA, and had seen reports about segregation, and the KKK. I well remember being mesmerised by the speech, and by the style of the orator. Although I was not religious, even then, so discounted any of that aspect, this speech held me in rapture, and perhaps more importantly, made me believe in the honesty of Mr King, and to also wish for the realisation of his desires.

If you have never seen it, it will be worth the eighteen minutes of your life, to view the grainy…

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24 thoughts on “‘I have a dream’”

  2. Pete, when I re-blogged this, one reader “corrected” me about getting my facts wrong, suggesting that I posted it because he gave the speech near the date of his assassination – as I explained to her, it’s powerful on this anniversary date to listen again to his powerful Mall speech, which was given well before he was murdered…thanks again for sharing it

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    1. It is indeed the anniversary of his assassination, John. That’s why I think it is better to remember this great speech, instead of his untimely murder five years later. Glad to see you corrected that comment.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  5. It’s interesting to remember that he wasn’t all that popular at the time in America. He’d made several anti-capitalist comments. This is from Gary Younge a few days ago;

    “… before his death in 1968, King was well on the way to becoming a pariah. In 1966, twice as many Americans had an unfavourable opinion of him as a favourable one. Life magazine branded his anti-Vietnam war speech at the Riverside church, delivered exactly a year before his assassination, as “demagogic slander”, and “a script for Radio Hanoi”. Just a week before he was killed, he attended a demonstration in Memphis in support of striking garbage workers. The protest turned violent and police responded with batons and teargas, shooting a 16-year-old boy dead. The press and the political class rounded on King. The New York Times said the events were “a powerful embarrassment” to him. A column in the Dallas Morning News called King “the headline-hunting high priest of nonviolent violence” whose “road show” in Memphis was “like a torchbearer sprinting into a powder-house”. The Providence Sunday Journal called him “reckless and irresponsible”. He was back in Memphis supporting the strike when he was killed.”

    The full article is https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/04/martin-luther-king-how-a-rebel-leader-was-lost-to-history

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    1. I can remember that he wasn’t popular, and received numerous death threats. One of the reasons why he often said he wouldn’t live to see his dreams happen. He sensed that someone would kill him, undoubtedly.
      Cheers mate, Pete.

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      1. Indeed it is, Pete. Thank you for sharing! Amazing how many blog posts accumulate over the years. This one definitely deserves a reblog.
        Warm greetings from Cley with a big pat for Ollie. Xx

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