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28 pages 56 minutes read

Martin Luther King Jr.

I Have A Dream Speech

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1973

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Key FiguresCharacter Analysis

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the most prominent leader of the American civil rights movement from 1955 to his death by assassination in 1968. A Baptist minister who headed the influential Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King advocated for the end of segregation, racism, and disenfranchisement as well as economic and labor rights for Black Americans. Throughout his life, he encouraged nonviolent acts of civil disobedience. For his efforts, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

King was born in Atlanta in 1929, the second of three children born to the Reverend Michael King and his wife Alberta. Both King’s grandfather and father preached at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and King grew up in a middle-class home on Atlanta’s Auburn Avenue—“Sweet Auburn”—one of the most prosperous Black neighborhoods in the United States. Despite being financially secure, King witnessed segregation and oppression common in the South. Throughout his life, he recounted the White friend he had until they were six when the other child told him he would no longer be allowed to play with King due to their attending separate, segregated schools.

King attended Morehouse College, graduating in 1948. He was mentored by the college’s president, Benjamin Mays, whose advocacy for the social gospel and the need for Black churches to focus on improving life for people on Earth instead of salvation in the afterlife left a mark on King. After college, King attended the Crozer Theological Seminary where he first encountered the work of Mohandas Gandhi and his philosophy of nonviolent acts of disobedience. From Crozer, King went to Boston University, where he received his doctorate and met his wife, Coretta Scott King, who he married in 1953.

In 1955, King was serving as the pastor of a church in Montgomery, Alabama. After Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat in the White people only section of a public bus, King helped lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In 1958, he published his memoir of that time, Stride Toward Freedom. Following the successful boycott, King formed the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC). He moved back to Atlanta and became co-pastor of Ebenezer with his father. In Atlanta, he led protests on department stores and lunch counters and was arrested for a minor traffic violation—an arrest that drew national attention to the unfair treatment of Black Americans by southern police forces and government. In the spring of 1963, he was arrested again after leading a protest in Birmingham, Alabama, where police officers turned fire hoses and police dogs on protesters. From jail, King wrote “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” a statement advocating civil disobedience. In August of that year, King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial, a speech encapsulating many of King’s ideas of racial equality, economic justice, the need for nonviolent acts of disobedience, and salvation both on Earth and in the afterlife. Later, King published Why We Can't Wait, a history of the 1963 Birmingham protests.

Following the speech, King continued to advocate for civil rights and was instrumental in the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, by that point, the civil rights movement was already splintering, with some arguing King’s protests were too cautious and the victories not large enough. Over the last few years of King’s life, King contended with both the nascent Black Power movement as well as segregation. In 1967, he began broadening his message beyond racism to include criticism of the war in Vietnam and poverty across all races, and published his book, Where Do We Go From Here. He had planned an interracial Poor People’s March on Washington for the summer of 1968, but did not live to see it come to fruition. On April 3, 1968, King was assassinated while speaking from his hotel room in Memphis where he was visiting as part of a city-wide strike of sanitation workers. The day before his assassination, King delivered his famous "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech in support of the striking workers.

Today, King is among the most celebrated and revered figures in American history. He has monuments across the country, streets named in his honor, and a national holiday commemorating his birthday. 

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