"I have a dream" - This are the most
important words Martin Luther King said.
Al lot of people only know him by this
sentence. But who is actually behind this person?
Why did he
speak about his dream to 250.000 people?
What did
this speech change?
We hope we
can take you to an interesting trip to Martin Luther King’s live.
Let’s start in 1929 in Atlanta, where he was
born as the family’s first son.
He lived in the center
of black people and already felt the racial segregation when he was young.
Imagine that: He wasn’t allowed to use the same toilets or to drink the same
water like the white people. It’s just unbelievable, isn’t it? For his mother
who was a teacher it was impossible to teach in schools for white people. Even of this whole situation he was
a very good pupil and had successfully completed his theology and sociology
studies. Martin Luther King wanted to work against racial segregation since he
was a child and was a victim of racism. Therefore he became pastor at the
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery. You still know the story of Rosa Parks which means that she was
arrested as she didn´t want to give up her seat to a white man. Because of this
reason he took part in the Civil Rights Movement and planed a Bus Boycott with other
fighters. So no black people traveled by bus for one year. They had success! The
racial segregation in busses was repealed. But not everybody accepted his work
against racial segregation. White people threatened him and his family
massively and he often ended up in prison. One day he was on the point of giving
up. “I was ready to give up. With my cup of coffee sitting untouched before
me, I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a
coward. In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone, I
decided to take my problem to God (…) At that moment, I experienced the
presence of the Divine as I had never experienced God before. It seemed as
though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: "Stand
up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever."
(…) My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything." He has set itself the task of fighting for
the justice and if it was necessary he would die for it. This was especially
expressed in his popular speech: “I have a dream” at the March on Washington in
1963, which you already saw. But did you know that without his friend
Mahalia Jackson the speech wouldn’t exists? King wasn’t prepared: He wrote the
speech and read it from the paper. The public applauded, but he couldn’t win
the public for himself. The speech almost ends, so Mahalia screamed: «Tell 'em
about the dream, Martin.» But he didn’t
react. In a break she screamed again: «Tell 'em about the dream, Martin.» King
pushed the manuscript away and started to talk about what he really had on his
mind. In his speech he talked what he dreamed about: that enemies will sit down
together on the table of brotherhood, that his children will have a better
childhood then he had, that all humans will treated the same and that people understand
that they will feel better when they love instead of hating. 1964 he won
the Nobel Peace Price for this speech. Although he fought for peace, he hadn’t
the chance to die in peace. He was shoot by a white man at the 5th
April 1968 in Memphis.