Dr. King’s 1962 Dream in Rocky Mount, NC
Martin Luther King Jr. visited Raleigh and Durham several times, however, one of his most notable visits to North Carolina was his 1962 stop in Rocky Mount. In this visit, Dr. King made prior use of his later famous “I have a dream” rhetoric. To an audience of 1800 in a high school gymnasium, Dr. King preached “I have a dream that one day here in Rocky Mount, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will meet at the table of brotherhood…” Though this is not his first use of the iconic phrase, Dr. King later confessed in an interview that the words were not as impactful to the audience in Georgia to which he first used the phrase in a speech. In the year following this address to North Carolinians at Booker T. Washington High School, King went on to embrace “I have a dream” fully into speeches.
Visit DNCR Blog more information on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech at Rocky Mount.
NCPedia: Martin Luther King, Jr.: Speech in Rocky Mount, N.C., November 1962
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