Without her, MLK’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech wouldn’t have mentioned dreams at all
Mahalia Jackson shouted mid-speech, “Tell them about the dream, Martin!” and the rest is history
The night before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s now famous “I Have a Dream” speech, his advisers were arguing in the lobby of the Willard Hotel in Washington D.C. Everyone had their own idea of what should be included in the speech. Should housing discrimination be the focus? Jobs? King would only have five minutes to deliver his message at the March on Washington. Every second would count. But one of his advisors, Walter E. Fauntroy, advised him to put the time limit out of his head and “do what the spirit say do.”
“My brothers, I understand,” King replied. “I appreciate all the suggestions. Now let me go and counsel with the Lord.”
In his room, he worked on the speech all night by hand, which wasn’t his usual routine. For most of his speeches, he only scribbled a few notes on the back of a church bulletin. He finished writing at 4 a.m. and handed it over to his advisers to be typed for press. Draft speech writer and friend, Clarence B. Jones, said that version was “more political and less historical.” The words “I have a dream” didn’t appear in the final version.
On Wednesday, August 28, 1963, King was the last speaker of the day. Over 250,000 people had gathered — traveling by train, bus, and car — to stand at the Lincoln Memorial for the historic moment. Before King went on, Mahalia Jackson sang “I Been ’Buked and I Been Scorned” and “How I Got Over,” to which King tapped along to the beat.
King’s speech followed the script until the end. The plan was to conclude with “Go back to our communities as members of the international association for the advancement of creative dissatisfaction.” But, spontaneously moved, he skipped that and said,“Go back to Mississippi; go back to Alabama; go back to South Carolina; go back to Georgia; go back to Louisiana; go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.”
Mahalia Jackson, being a gospel singer bred in the black church, shouted, “Tell them about the dream, Martin!” With Jackson’s encouragement, he then improvised and added some of his most recognized words today. “I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.”
He later explained in an interview that “all of a sudden this thing came to me that I have used — I’d used many times before, that thing about ‘I have a dream’ — and I just felt that I wanted to use it here.”
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