What Martin Luther King, Jr. DIDN’T Say 61 Years Ago

Speaking at a recent online event, a key piece of the presentation focused on how we open our talks. I’m on a mission to get people to stop ramping up to the middles.

One of the worst starts I see, time and again, is the agenda.  If there’s one takeaway I want for you today, it’s this:  No one in the history of meetings has ever been excited to hear an agenda read to them!  The time for an agenda, if there even needs to be one shared in many cases, is the email that got people to the meeting.  And I’m not saying you shouldn’t have an agenda for what you’re going to cover for your own sake; just don’t read it to everyone.

On my Zoom call that day, the topic Martin Luther King came up.  I said, “That speech is so iconic.  So powerful.  And you know what King was smart enough NOT to do?  He DIDN’T start his program by saying:

‘Good afternoon, everyone.  Thank you all for coming.  It’s great to be here.  Now I’d like to tell you about what I’m going to be covering today.  First, I’m going to tell you about the injustices we’ve all been experiencing.  Then I’m going to tell you about what I want for you when you get home.  Then I’m going to tell you about a dream I have…'” 

That sounds awful, doesn’t it?  Yet it’s what so many speakers do…even think they’re supposed to do! The assembly of people in 1963 didn’t want a list of what he was going to cover; they wanted to be inspired.  MLK jumped right in with moving people with emotional facts that made them want to hear more.  And it was a good speech but, surprisingly, it almost wasn’t his best:

In researching this column, I was surprised to learn that the most memorable and quoted part of that speech was not how he started…or even what he intended to say!  I have always thought the speech started with his saying  “I have a dream!” because I’ve always seen clips that start there. In fact, that best-known section came way after the the middle and led to an unintended ending!

On that famed August day long ago, King was in the midst of giving a speech that was quite good, but still not actually him at his best.  Well into the program, his dear friend, the great gospel Singer Mahalia Jackson, sensed that King wasn‘t fully making the most of the moment.  She called out to him from behind, “Tell them about your dream, Martin.”  In some films, you can see the moment that he bravely left his script behind and, following Mahalia’s wise advice, improvised the section that the nation was tremendously moved by, starting with:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal… I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

and building up to his final cry:

“And when this happens, and when we allow freedom [to] ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Not only was Mahalia right but, I suspect, if he were to do it all over again, that might be the point he would have started with. Start in the ballroom.  You’ve got us, Mr. King!  We don’t need to be warmed up and we’re ready to listen.Tell us your dream!

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

PS:  Full text of the speech, very worth reading, is printed here or video is viewed here, where you can feel the rise when he gets to that part.
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