Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered at the March on Washington, is one of the best-known speeches in history. Less known is that the actual speech he had before him on the podium that day had no mention of a “dream” at all.
For years, Dr. King had been writing and speaking about his dream of America as a society where all men are, indeed, created equal. He spoke so often of having a dream, in fact, that his inner circle was afraid the phrase had become overused and trite. The night before the March on Washington, Dr. King and his closest advisors worked together to come up with a new message. "I have a dream" did not appear in the manuscript at all.
The speech was titled "Normalcy--Never Again," and before a quarter of a million hearers, King began to deliver this new message. Several minutes into this speech, he paused and turned the manuscript over. Then he launched into the words that were closest to his heart: "So I say to you today, my friends, that even though we must face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream."
Dr. King's decision to talk about the dream God had given him is wrought with the vision and wisdom of God. It compels me to ask: How do I learn to live with such a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit that I could completely shift gears against the advice of the experts and before a crowd of 250,000 onlookers?
Dr. King may have launched that day into an old message, but it was a message somehow made new for a world that needed to hear it. Clarence Jones, one of the men who had helped with the new speech the night before, recalled the transition in King's speech and remembered bowing his head in defeat after all his hard work. Little did he realize what could become of four familiar words when the Spirit is moving and active! "I have a dream" became the phrase that came to define the civil rights movement itself.
The Holy Spirit is anxious to be active in your life today. He is the keeper of the greatest of dreams, and He is the keeper of the dreamers themselves.
Don’t be afraid to dream God’s Dreams. Listen to the Spirit’s voice and follow wherever it leads.
With Love,
Mike