“It’s the thing the mainstream fears the most,” he says. 24, 1964, as they protest a busing program aimed at increasing racial balance in New York City schools. The concept of integration that King evoked in his “I Have a Dream” speech is the most “radical, discomfiting and transformative” idea in US politics, adds Baker, a novelist and professor at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.ĭemonstrators shout at policemen outside City Hall on Sept. Integration is “too threatening to the status quo to ever consider fully,” says Calvin Baker, author of “ A More Perfect Reunion: Race, Integration, and the Future of America.” The core concept in King’s dream is racial integration – and it still terrifies many people 60 years later. But “I Have a Dream” has arguably become his most radical speech - not because of what he said but because of how America has changed since that day.įorget the nonthreatening version of the speech you’ve been taught that emphasizes King’s benign vision of Black, White and brown Americans living in blissful racial harmony. That declaration might sound like sacrilege to those who will point to King’s thunderous takedowns of war, poverty and capitalism in other sermons. It is also the most radical speech King ever delivered. The speech King gave 60 years ago in Washington has been endlessly replayed, dissected and misquoted. Martin Luther King Jr.’s national holiday, millions of Americans will once again hear what has become the day’s unofficial soundtrack: King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. It’s been called “the moment that changed everything,” the day America “turned the mystic corner,” and “the greatest political speech of the 20th century.”Īs the nation celebrates the Rev.

Mlk i had a dream speech