I hope you’re speaking sarcastically. That’s a terrible speech. Dreadful delivery.
Another Brit here.
MLK was a big Civil Rights person in the 60s ?
Made that speech, and was eventually shot dead at a motel.
And thats about all I know.
Ruggedly handsome Northern Irishman here and I’d say that the basics of MLK’s speech are fairly well-known here but few people will have read or heard the entire thing.
I only read it all because it was quoted in full in a series of ‘famous speeches’ that were being discussed in a newspaper once.
But yes, its fairly well known.
It would’ve been inflammatory and radical (i.e., actually threatening to the status quo) if he’d mentioned specific means to addressing grievances, which he didn’t do in that speech. Rather, in that speech, he cautions blacks not to use violence, and otherwise stays vague and non-threatening:
[QUOTE=King]
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.
[/quote]
That’s it. Five years later, however, King was talking about not only the specifics of how capitalism allowed racism to persist, and but also the nature of U.S. hegemony in the developing world. That’s what made him truly radical, and that’s what our collective depiction of King wants to erase. Now, all our children hear about King is “I have a dream.”
There’s not question that King’s opposition to the Vietnam war, and his economic critiques, were radical. However, to suggest that his previous work was vague platitudes and uncontroversial is bizarre. Have you read his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, written about four months previous, that directly addresses accusations that he’s a foreign radical come to Birmingham to stir up trouble?
The reason IHAD is remembered has several reasons:
- It addressed an issue that was tearing the country apart, and that’s only a little bit hyperbolic.
- It is a work of remarkable poetry, both technically and aesthetically brilliant, delivered by a master orator at the height of his powers.
- It was a speech given before a quarter-million people at the largest civil rights demonstration that had ever occurred, in the nation’s capital, with the nation looking on.
You can certainly say that his later work addressed issues of similar importance, and while that’s not uncontroversial, you can make a case for it. What later work of his do you think equals IHAD for points 2 and 3?
Edit: as for the idea that the speech is nonthreatening:
and so forth…
So, 12 years later, I’m curious about this thread’s content. Have international attitudes about, or recognition of, this speech changed over the last decade–especially in comparison to other American speeches?
Are there other speeches in English that are better-known around the world?
I believe Gettysburg address tops it.
Naah, it’s second, the other one (Gettysburg) is more famous, I’d say.
Yes, very, and at school in the 80s (not as part of the official Apartheid education curriculum, you understand. We had our own separate Liberation Struggle curriculum going on)
Nelson Mandela’s Rivonia Trial “I Am Prepared To Die” speech is better known here. Also possibly PW Botha’s “crossing the Rubicon” one.
Then there’s Churchill’s “Never Surrender” speech…
Back in 2007 ABC Radio National conducted a series on famous speeches and had Aussies vote for the “most unforgettable” speech in history. The winner was Dr Martin Luther King Jr. “I have a dream,” 28 August 1963, Washington DC.
I don’t think I saw this 12 years ago (and put me down for another who saw the words “most famous American speech” and thought Gettysburg) - had I answered then, I would have said that I recognised it, and had a broad brush understanding of who MLK Jr was and why the speech mattered.
Nowadays, in the aftermath of the international BLM movement, and having had more time to learn stuff, I think my understanding has moved on a bit. There’s a comment above comparing the speech with Lennon’s Imagine: obviously dumb but reflecting the way it was regarded in Britain when I grew up (80s onward). That is that the speech - and MLK Jr by extension - is all about a happy vision of sons of former slaves and sons of formers slaveowners sitting down together and isn’t that all lovely and nice.
I don’t want to overclaim what I knew back then, but I think I was reasonably aware that it was a bit more complicated than that, and nowadays have I hope a much better understanding that even within that speech, let alone the life and works of King, there is a lot more righteous anger at injustice, well grounded in factual observation, than there is “wouldn’t it be lovely if” - and even that is clearly the final stage of a well-laid out process, to be achieved through hard work in the face of adversity.
I would also have put Gettysburg first, but guessed you were asking about MLK from the title.
Gettysburg may have held the lead in the past. I think it is ‘I have a dream’ now. Much of that is because we have an audio recording of MLK giving that speech while the Gettysburg Address has to be read.
I am really interested in folks who say “Gettysburg.” Are we thinking about what makes a speech famous differently?
I asked both of my kids (ages 11 and 15) this morning a series of questions. Note that my wife has her master’s in American history, and that my teenager is reading nonfiction about Viking history just for fun, and that both of these kids are straight-A students in American schools. These were roughly the questions, and their answers:
- Do you know what “Four score and seven years” means? (Younger: huh? Older: 87?)
- What about “The Gettysburg address?” (Younger: huh? Older: something to do with Gettysburg? Is it a speech?)
- It’s a speech–do you know who gave it? (Younger: by this point uninterested. Older: Was it Lincoln?)
- Do you know what it’s about? (Older: no idea!)
- Great. What if I say, “I have a dream”? (Both kids: Oh yeah, that’s Martin Luther King, that speech he gave about civil rights!)
If the criteria is, “What speech do you associate most with America?” I can see people saying Gettysburg, because of how American history was taught two or three generations ago. But if it’s any of the following questions, I still suspect “I Have a Dream” is more famous:
- Can you quote, or even paraphrase, at least two different lines from the speech?
- Can you tell what the speech is about?
- Can you tell, within twenty years, when the speech was made?
Thanks! Looking around online at lists of famous speeches, I’m seeing I Have a Dream topping most lists, including this list compiled by a group of historians:
https://news.wisc.edu/i-have-a-dream-leads-top-100-speeches-of-the-century/
However, that list is specifically 20th-century, and American, so it’s limited. But still, nearly every other list I see, including ones that include Gettysburg and Churchill and Mandela, list MLK’s speech at the top.
I don’t know of any scientific way to answer the question.
Sure, we’ve got the actual recording of MLK. We also have what seemed like every 80s sitcom with a kid in it making them wear a stovepipe, frock coat and fake beard in one episode.
And yes, I, not an American, can recite more than a couple of sentences from the speech, know what it’s about, and even know the date it was given. That’s what growing up with the World Book Encyclopedia does for you, I guess.
Also, it should be pointed out that “most famous” and “most unforgettable” or “greatest” are not necessarily the same thing.
FWIW I’m old enough to have been a politically aware teenager in 1963, and if you followed the news at all in the UK, you couldn’t not be aware of the civil rights struggle throughout those years. Even before “rolling news only” channels, the regular evening news and current affairs channels gave it all extensive coverage, including Dr King’s speech. But it wasn’t covered in school (too soon for the history curriculum and we didn’t do formal rhetoric in English).
Lincoln’s press agent: Abe, just read it the way Charlie wrote it, alright?
Probably - I guess “famous” is a sort of Keynesian beauty contest where the question is “what does everyone else think of when they think of a famous American speech”, and at some point various facets of absorbed popular culture made it so that the GA was the specimen American speech that will always pop into my head first. It’s not a reflection of the impact or merits of either speech. This probably happened when I was quite young and I suspect if I asked my kids they’d never have heard of GA.
Basically I “know” GA is the most famous American speech in the same way I “know” that Marilyn Monroe is the sexiest actress who ever breathed - it’s not a personal opinion, it’s a fact-shaped bit of pop culture I imbibed while growing up.
I wonder how it breaks out by generation. If any of y’all have kids, and want to ask them questions similar to what I asked mine, I’d be curious how they answer.
Right. It’s all subjective, and we need not agree. Heck, if I had to rank what I think (i.e. my opinion only), the greatest American speeches would be:
- The Gettysburg Address
- Lincoln’s Second Inaugural speech
- FDR’s “Day of Infamy” speech
MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech would be somewhere in the top ten, and is certainly significant. But the three above are my choices. Again, my opinion only.
I was definitely familiar with it growing up in the UK, both from history lessons (we were taught about the US civil rights movement) and references in US TV shows. Can’t say as I’d have been able to quote more than the first line though (edit: is “I have a dream” the first line?)