Black History Month 2025

Some history of Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream Speech

Black History Month 2025: The Story Continues 

President Gerald Ford made Black History Month official in February of 1976, the same year our country was celebrating its Bicentennial.

The truth is Black Americans have been playing a pivotal role in American History for three hundred and fifty years. The black experience making a transformative impact on this country for centuries. 

One reason celebrating Black History Month is important is that while we may continue to get better at teaching our kids the positive contributions of Black Americans to our country, we are less practiced at teaching the negative contributions of our country on Black Americans. 

In many ways we continue to whitewash or leave untaught our country’s often violent history from slavery, to Jim Crow, to mass incarceration. The better we know and understand our complete history the better we may know and understand each other and ourselves.

The crucial role of the March on Washington 

An example of how we dilute our history is to see the March on Washington on August 28, 1963 as simply a moment when hundreds of thousands peacefully gathered and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told them about a Dream. 

Yes, it was that, but it was so much more. It was the largest gathering ever in Washington, DC hosted by black Americans. It was viewed at the time by many white Americans with apprehension and dread. J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI called it a “communist endeavor.” Government agencies reacted by shutting down. 19 thousand troops were deployed. Space was made in jails in anticipation of trouble. Alcohol was banned. Hospitals delayed elective surgeries in the expectations of injuries from violence. 

Because none of those fears were realized, because it was a peaceful, inspiring gathering, what we can choose to remember are the historical images of a quarter of a million people, a large majority of them African Americans, gathered around the reflecting pond of our nation on an August day doing something historic for Black history, American history. For us all.

The Dream of Martin Luther King 

In one of the twists of American history, the part of Dr. King’s speech we remember best from that day, that would become part of Black history curriculums, was not part of his prepared remarks. 

Toward the end of his speech, gospel singer Mahalia Jackson prompted Dr.King to “tell ‘em about the dream” and so he did. Here is some of what he said. Ideas as important today as they were sixty years ago: 

So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. 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…

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day…

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.

Powerful, hopeful words spoken in the shadow of a large statue of Abraham Lincoln seated behind him. 

Dr. King, dreamer and doer with a potent impact 

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial was opened to the public in Washington, DC on a site not far from the Lincoln Memorial where Dr. King shared his dream forty-eight Augusts earlier. A granite statue of Dr. King, named the Stone of Hope is the centerpiece of that memorial.

It is something to consider now the profound contributions of Dr. King as a civil rights activist against social injustice. All he accomplished in his too-short life. The crucial role he played. The cultural contribution he made. For Black Americans. For all Americans. 

He entered the world stage as spokesman for the Montgomery Bus Boycott when he was 26 years old. He was 34 when he shared his Dream. Brutally murdered in Memphis supporting Black workers at age 39.

Dr. King will be well remembered for sharing his Dream with the world. He did that and so much more. A too-short life spent working for racial justice, economic equality, and world peace. Work worthy of the Nobel Prize for Peace he received in 1964 at age 35.

They killed the dreamer but not the dream

Much of the American experience when it comes to Civil Rights may be described as small yet significant steps forward met with harsh, sometimes violent resistance. It is the history of the Civil Rights Movement in this country, and the history of freedom seekers around the world. For example, we elect our first black President before electing someone who questions the legitimacy of that black Presidency.

As we celebrate Black History Month 2025, it is clear Dr. King’s Dream did not die with him. That sun-filled day in 1963 continues to belong to all of us. 

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin was there amongst the crowd when Dr.King shared his dream. She says it was the most joyful day of public unity and community that she has ever experienced. As I said in a previous post, my wife and I were in Selma for the 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday. In both those instances, what a joy it was to celebrate such an important moment in American history at a party hosted by African Americans. 

To quote Senator Ted Kennedy at the end of a long and disapointing campaign, “The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.” 

More than a DREAM

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 60’s is not simply African American history, but is important American History. I created videos that share some of that history in songs and stories. Here is a link to what I call Remembering the Dream.