I Have a Dream

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, to more than 250,000 people at the March on Washington, and The New York Times's James Reston wrote that the day was better covered by television and the press than any event in the city since Kennedy's inauguration. That coverage is the gift. On film you can see the size of the crowd, hear Mahalia Jackson call out "Tell 'em about the dream, Martin!" and watch King move from the prepared argument about America's "bad check" into the passage everyone knows. Show the whole speech, not the last minutes, so the dream is heard as the answer to that opening complaint.