There is a widespread belief that this speech was one of the greatest ever and I support that notion.
As was written the next day in the New York Times,
"Doctor King touched all the themes of the day, only better than anyone else. He was full of the symbolism of Lincoln and Ghandi, and the cadences of the bible. He was both militant and sad, and he sent the crowd away feeling the long journey had been worthwhile."
The crowd was over a quarter of a million people, mostly black but with many enlightened white activists there too. Enlightened? Indeed. In America in the early 1960's to believe that all people were equal and to want to actually do something about it demanded enlightenment in the individual.
Most people believe that the speech was a major turning point in the emancipation of the black population of America and they would be correct. I would go further and say that his speech not only resonated with black people in America but with suppressed minorities throughout the world.
Unfortunately, despite the huge strides that have been made in equality, there is still a lot to be done to ensure that all are treated equally but as Dr King said,
"And when this happens, and when we allow freedom 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!"
In the world we live in there will never be perfect freedom or perfect equality but we should all work towards making it as perfect as it can get, not only for the minorities but for all who live on this planet.
There are many links to the speech on the internet both in text and audio forms. I would encourage you to go and have a read or a listen if you have never done so. It will be 5 minutes very well spent.
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