KING SPEAKS: A crowd of
200,000 people joined the Washington gathering
Aug. 28, 1963
Marching for a Dream
By Jack E. White
As a
brilliant political speaker in his own right, John F. Kennedy observed
Martin Luther King Jr.'s soul-stirring address to the huge throng at the
Lincoln Memorial with a professional's eye. "He's damn good," he
remarked to aides as they watched King on a TV set at the White House.
According to King's biographer, Taylor Branch, Kennedy was especially
impressed with King's departure from his prepared text to sound the
electrifying refrain that became the oratorical high point of blacks'
freedom struggle: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up
and live out the true meaning of its creed ... I have a dream that one
day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons
of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of
brotherhood ... I have a dream that my four children will one day live
in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but
by the content of their character." A short time later, when King and
other leaders of the March on Washington filed into the Cabinet Room to
lobby for stronger provisions in Kennedy's proposed civil rights
legislation, the President greeted King with a smile and a quip: "I have
a dream."
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