In Part 3 of their opening series on The Great Speeches of History, Sam and Nick discuss perhaps the definitive speech on equality in America, Martin Luther King's classic "I Have A Dream." How did King's experiences as a Black child in Atlanta, including losing one of his best friends and being sent to the back of a bus, shape his worldview? How did he end up writing a classic text about his philosophy of nonviolent resistance on scraps of paper in a jail cell? And how did the Queen of Gospel help him improvise the most famous section of his March on Washington address? Join us as we break down what Sam thinks is the greatest speech ever delivered. 

Show notes:

MLK, "I Have A Dream" (1963; text; video)

MLK, "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (1963)

MLK, "I've Been To The Mountaintop" (1968; text; video)

MLK, Autobiography (1998)

MLK, Why We Can't Wait (1964)

Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience" (1849)

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)

Samarth Desai, "Looking Back: Nullification in American History" (2022)

Drew Hansen, The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech that Inspired a Nation (2005)

James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1963)

Credits: Mahalia Jackson, live performance of "How I Got Over" from the Internet Archive