The Greatest American Speech

It has been called the greatest American speech of the 20th century. Yesterday marked its 50th anniversary.

I first saw the newsfilm of "I Have a Dream" in its entirety in 1969, the year after Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. In truth I wasn't ready to appreciate it in 1963 when I was a pre-teen.

Growing up in Hawaii my friends and I were all far removed from the civil rights movement, Mississippi and Alabama. Our class had one African-American student, a friendly guy and a terrific athlete (!). It didn't seem comprehensible that some people could hate our classmate because of the color of his skin. In retrospect, although he seemed to fit in with the multiracial student body, I have absolutely no idea what he really thought or felt. (It turned out that another black kid in our elementary school at that time did feel out of place.)

The greatest American speech surprised me with its power and, yes, beauty. Sure, I had read its text, but watching Dr. King and hearing his preacherly cadences calling forth the best in each listener filled this then-teenager with emotion. He and John F. Kennedy two years earlier had asked us to look to the mountaintop. Their dreams seemed impossible, but with these men leading us perhaps we had a chance to get there. In the wink of an eye they were both gone.