These excerpts from the Rev. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech were printed in the Greenfield Recorder on April 5, 1968, the day after Dr. King’s assassination in Memphis, Tennessee. The original speech had been given at the August, 1963, March on Washington in support of federal civil rights legislation. King justified the goals of the civil rights movement in terms of traditional American values, quoting from the Declaration of Independence. By1968, legal segregation in the South had nearly been eliminated but racial inequality and conflict seemed to have intensified. For many Americans, King’s assassination heightened the contrast between the 1963 dream and the reality of 1968.
Greenfield Recorder. “King’s Dream Speech In 1963 Urged Full Rights For Negroes.” April 5, 1968. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, American Centuries. https://americancenturies.org/collection/l08-011/. Accessed on October 16, 2024.
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