whose helping you reach your dreams?
Most words spoken slip unnoticed into the night, barely heard and never remembered. Others become immortal. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech falls into the timeless category, and those words almost never happened.
The night before the March on Washington in August 1963, MLK was still wrestling with the speech he was to deliver the next day. He crafted his words until 4:00 a.m., then handed the completed speech to an aide so it could be typed for distribution to the press. The title of the speech was, Normalcy, Never Again. The words, “I have a dream” were nowhere in the speech.
MLK was the last speaker of the event. 250,000 people had gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial at the end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Just prior to King’s speech, the Queen of Gospel, Mahalia Jackson, sang two songs to the crowd. She was a close friend of King’s and accompanied him often to his speaking events. Her last note fell over the crowd and King stepped to the podium to deliver what he intended to be a five-minute speech.
King began with the metaphor of a promissory note or a bad check. He said,
In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”
As King was nearing the end of his prepared remarks, the crowd remained unmoved. Mahalia Jackson, standing off to the side of the podium, shouted, “Tell them about the dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream!”
Hearing her words, King slid his written speech to the side of the podium, looked to the crowd, and began improvising the rest of his speech. It is then that we hear the words that became the iconic “I have a dream” speech. Moving and immortal.
Mahalia Jackson helped create this defining moment in the civil rights movement by encouraging MLK to share the words and ideas she had heard him express before. And with her encouragement, he let go of his prepared five-minute “insufficient funds” speech and delivered his timeless 16-minute “I have a dream” speech.
We all need a Mahalia Jackson in our lives. Someone who knows us, walks with us, and knows when it’s time to nudge us in a new direction. We need someone to encourage and inspire us. To remind us of the dreams we have. To help get us back on track when we see them starting to slip away.
Whose the Mahalia helping you reach your dreams?