Building the Beloved Community: Bishop Michael Curry's Reflections on Dr. King

Dr. King with his children Yolanda & Martin Luther III
at the World's Fair August 12, 1964

Given the enormous weight of his legacy, the lasting impact of his work and the nature of his violent death in 1968, I'm not sure it's appropriate to wish someone a "Happy" Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on such a solemn occasion.

Clearly it's more important than ever to recognize, honor and celebrate Dr. King's life, and even though my office was open today and I had to work (they say real estate never sleeps), I was fortunate enough to be able to hear some uplifting words of hope and inspiration on The Brian Lehrer Show earlier this morning.

The words were recorded at WNYC's 13th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration held Sunday afternoon at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

The event, co-hosted by Brian Lehrer and All Things Considered host Jami Floyd, focused on the contributions of lesser known figures who played essential roles in the Civil Rights movement.

It featured panelists and speakers including NAACP board member Dr. Hazel Dukes and renowned photographer and author Chester Higgins, Jr.

One of the highlights of the event was a moving reflection on the spiritual meaning of Dr. King's legacy by Bishop Michael Curry, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church and the first African-American to hold the office.

Now you may recall Bishop Curry as the speaker who managed to upstage the spectacle of the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle back in May with a charismatic sermon on the power of love that stole the show (and raised royal eyebrows by stretching the ceremony a full eight minutes over the slotted time...) definitely worth a watch if you didn't see it.

Bishop Michael Curry delivering the royal sermon

Watch Prince Charles' wife Camilla Parker Bowles (whose affair with His Royal Highness famously wrecked his marriage to Princess Diana...) squirm and shoot sideways glances at Prince William's wife Kate Middleton as the Bishop really gets into it...worth it.

This past Sunday at the MLK Day celebration at the Apollo, Bishop Curry brought that same powerful mix of spirituality, charisma, wisdom and humor with remarks that left me laughing out loud in my office.

So for those of you who appreciate good oratory, and want to hear a genuinely funny, insightful and moving reflection on the love that lies at the root of Dr. King's mission, take a few minutes to sit down and click this link and listen to the opening of this segment from the Brian Lehrer Show earlier this morning.

When the page opens just click the blue arrow - the whole segment is 50 minutes, but Brian opens with a quick introduction and then quickly plays the lengthy excerpt of Bishop Curry's comments that are both powerful and funny - so he gets right into the clip.

Far more intelligent, learned and capable people than I have spent much of today discussing King's legacy on radio, TV and in person, but I'm not sure any of them get to the heart of Dr King's teachings more effectively than Bishop Curry does.

Again, I'm not one to wish someone a "happy" MLK Day, but Bishop Curry's remarks left me with a sense of joy on a solemn occasion at a time in our nation's history when Dr. King's message is more important than ever - and still resonates.

And I think it's important not to confuse that message in the way VP Mike Pence did on Sunday when he had the gall to use one of Dr. King's quotes to justify Trump's senseless wall of hatred.

As Georgia Democratic Congressman John Lewis observed earlier today of Dr. King:

 "We honor his legacy by celebrating this holiday as a day on, not a day off. It is a day of action, a day of love, to give of ourselves to others and begin anew the building of the beloved community." 

A community where all are welcome, and there are no walls.

Oklahoma & Kentucky: Teaching Democracy

Tulsa, Oklahoma elementary school teacher Janie
Mitchell at an April 2nd rally at the state capital 

On the 50th anniversary of his assassination, it's difficult to know exactly what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. might think about the current state of America.

Particularly given the polarized nature of our politics, a two-tier justice system rife with racial and economic bias and the growing socioeconomic inequality between American citizens exacerbated by legislative policies passed by Republican-majority state legislatures and the GOP-majority House and Senate. 


But if Dr. King were still alive today (he'd have turned 88 in January), it's fair to speculate that he'd be among those fighting for the causes that he believed in and fought so hard to achieve in the 1950's and 60's - including the right to a good education and fair pay.

The essence of Dr. King's spirit, including his embrace of Mahatma Ghandi's belief in the power of peaceful non-violent resistance and civil disobedience, and the courage to speak truth to power, can  arguably be seen amongst the striking public school teachers across the nation.

Inspired by West Virginia teachers, whose nine-day walkout in early March captured global attention and forced state lawmakers to grant them a 5% pay increase, thousands of Oklahoma public school teachers, administrators and other supporters descended upon the state capital in Oklahoma City on Monday morning.

They rallied in front of the state capitol building, then broke into groups to confront state lawmakers in hallways and offices to demand significant increases to Oklahoma's education funding. 

Since the Oklahoma state legislature slashed public school spending by more than $200 million in the wake of the Great Recession in 2008, the number of students in Oklahoma public schools has increased by more than 40,000 - placing huge demands on public school administrators and teachers and forcing some schools to eliminate funding for programs like art, music and athletics.

Thousands of Kentucky public school teachers
packed the state capital in Frankfurt on Monday

As the sign (pictured above) held by Tulsa elementary school teacher Janie Mitchell demonstrates, Oklahoma public school teachers are fed up with being ranked 49th out of 50 states in terms of salary.

And at the same time, the draconian education cuts have led to some 1,500 teachers being removed from the ranks of Oklahoma public schools.

Those cost are impacting the lives and futures of both students and teachers.

Some public schools in Oklahoma have four day school weeks due to a lack of teachers and money - a situation that plays out in Kentucky as well where thousands of teachers closed schools to fill the halls of the state capitol building on Monday morning to protest under-funded public schools and a sneaky legislative maneuver by state lawmakers to pass cuts in teacher pension benefits on the sly.

Part of what would rankle Dr. King is that the reality is that there's money in the Oklahoma state budget to fully and properly fund public schools and pay teachers a competitive salary.

But as in other states controlled by Republican state legislatures (like Kansas), lawmakers have used anti-union rhetoric and irrational ALEC-driven vilification of public schools to justify shifting money from education in order to fund (drum roll please...) tax breaks for corporations and the 1%.

For example, consider the $300 million tax break for new oil and natural gas drilling Republican Oklahoma legislators and Republican Governor Mary Fallin tucked into the fiscal 2018 state budget.

Republican Oklahoma Gov. Mary Falin

Oklahoma is one of the biggest producers of oil and natural gas in the nation, and U.S. petroleum companies already benefit from a host of federal subsidies for oil and natural gas exploration and drilling.

Yet Oklahoma Republican lawmakers authorized moving $300 million in taxpayer funds to oil and gas companies as many public school classrooms go without sufficient teachers, books and other basic school supplies - it literally borders on criminal.

Conservative Republican Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, who many already considered something of a ideologically right-wing nitwit, epitomized the simplistic, condescending, uninformed Republican contempt for public education on Tuesday when she told CBS News that:

"Teachers want more, but it's kind of like having a teenage kid that wants a better car."  

Now when you read a dismissive, idiotic, Trump-like statement like that, just remember that the public school teachers Fallin is talking about have gone without pay raises for a decade, rank 49th out of all 50 states in salary, and are teaching more students with less funding in an era when education is as critical for global competitiveness as it's ever been.

Who sounds more like the teenage kid?

Fallin and other state legislators moved to sign an education funding and teacher salary increase, but it's way below what teachers are looking for - and her Betsy DeVos-ish "teenage kid" statement only gives teachers more fuel to keep pressuring Republican lawmakers to cough up the money.

Dr. King with other leaders of the 1963 March
on Washington for Jobs and Freedom 

Unfortunately for Fallin, she's too politically one-dimensional to realize that her statement only validates the striking teacher's demands, and paints Republicans as even more tone deaf than most Americans already think they are.

And it only increases the chances of a Democratic Blue Wave this fall when these thousands of voters head for the polls in November for the mid-term elections.

These grassroots protests are demonstrating growing widespread support for public education.

Teachers, administrators, parents and educational professionals are building political momentum across the country - including way out in Arizona where teachers, fired up by the strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky, are moving closer to a strike in one of the most reliably politically Red States in the nation - one with an open Senate seat in the fall too.

This despite years of Republican legislators working to curb collective bargaining rights for teachers and other public sector employees, and trying to shift public education funding to private and charter schools with the help of the American Legislative Exchange Council.

But thousands of teachers across the country (and thousands of students protesting gun violence) are showing that real voices matter - and that there is real power in numbers.

This is what Democracy looks like, and Dr. King would be proud to see civil disobedience and organized protest making a difference and moving the needle in the 21st century.

The Eagles Soar & Dr. King Sells Trucks?

Eagles Quarterback Nick Foles savors the moment

As long-time Washington Redskins fan, I must admit that it felt a little weird cheering for the Philadelphia Eagles at my friend Ian's Super Bowl party last night.

Regardless of my mixed feelings, it felt pretty good seeing Philly take down the Patriots in one of the best Super Bowls ever played after assorted so-called "experts" had relegated the Eagles to underdog status throughout the playoffs.

According to Deadline.com, last night's Super Bowl ratings hit an 8-year low.

But in this age of OTT (Over The Top) streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO GO, Hulu and others, I don't think it's really an accurate gauge of a Super Bowl's "success" to reduce it to some kind of calculation of audience reach.

Whatever the audience "numbers" were, hundreds of millions of people around the world watched the broadcast live, and that's saying something in this age when audiences in general are so fractured, consuming media across so many different platforms, on so many different devices and in so many different ways. 

Aside from Justin Timberlake's confusing and annoying medley of 60-second snippets of his songs during half-time which USA Today's Maeve McDermott called "a wimpy joke" (was singing a few lines from Prince's "I Would Die For You" beneath a video image of his Purple Majesty the best choice?), Super Bowl 52 was unquestionably one of the most entertaining, exciting and competitive games ever played - and that's saying a lot considering some of the classic Super Bowl finishes.

Back when I used to live in New York City and was actively pursuing acting and voice-overs as career tracks, my old voice-over teacher Stuart used to hold Super Bowl parties at his apartment populated with actors and voice-over artists and various creative types.

When the commercials came on, everyone would go silent and the volume would be turned up so everyone could see and hear the commercials because some of the people in the room were either in the commercials, were involved in casting or producing them, or their voices were being used and it was a pretty big deal in the professional sense.

Would Dr. King have wanted his words
used to sell Dodge trucks? 

We would scrutinize all the commercials for the writing, quality and appeal, and when the game came back on, the volume would be turned back down and everyone would huddle and analyze them.

Overall, my impression was that the commercials this year were pretty "average" considering the amount of money poured into creating them - none of them really blew me away. 

The only commercial I responded to emotionally was the Dodge Ram truck commercial which used a sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - and not in a good way.

In terms of age and ethnicity, my friend Ian and his girlfriend had a pretty diverse group of people at their Super Bowl party in Lawrenceville, NJ last night. 

They had three different TV's set up in different parts of their place so everyone could see the game comfortably, and I just happened to be sitting near three young African-Americans in their 20's in the basement watching the game when the Dodge commercial came on.

Now if you didn't see the commercial, it seemed to follow a visual theme that a few other commercials (including one from Budweiser) used - images of Americans helping one another in the wake of natural disasters like the hurricanes and floods that have ravaged small communities and larger cities like Houston, San Juan, PR and Miami in recent months.

But watching those images of folks lending one another a hand while the voice of Dr. King extols the virtues of service to one's fellow man while images of a Dodge pickup trucks flash across the screen just reeked of poor taste, bad timing and questionable decision-making.

Was Dr. King's mission about commercial promotion? 

And, as I've often railed about on this blog before, it demonstrates one of the downsides of the advertising industry's sketchy record of recruiting people of color. 

The fact that this commercial concept was approved, budgeted, produced and shown in front of a live audience of hundreds of millions of people is a consequence of the ad industry's lack of diversity.

It's one example of not having an African-American or person of color in the decision-making or creative process who can bring a different perspective to the table - I mean did anyone in Dodge's marketing department or in the offices of the ad agency that produced the ad raise their hand in a meeting and ask if this was an appropriate choice? 

As Sapna Mashewari observed in an article in the New York Times earlier today: 

"Adding to the disconnect, the sermon in question, delivered exactly 50 years ago, touched on the dangers of overspending on items like cars and discussed why people 'are so often taken by advertisers.'"

Sure, the intent of the commercial is obvious: associating the Dodge brand with consumers who value service to others and helping their fellow neighbors in times of crisis and need.

My guess is some creative genius in stylish $800 eyeglasses thought that a commercial using the words of Dr. King at the start of Black History Month would be a nice way to tap African-American consumers - or make white consumers feel better about buying a Dodge Ram at a time when a divisive, overt racist sits in the White House not far from white supremacist policy advisors. 

But it wasn't a good idea.

Members of the Cleveland Browns kneel during the
playing of the national anthem earlier this season 

Especially not in a year in which NFL players have made headlines for using their positions to bring attention to the epidemic of disparate use of excessive and deadly force against people of color in this country by some members of U.S. law enforcement.

Not when we have a president who dismisses countries with majority black or latino populations as "shithole countries".

After the commercial played, I took off my glasses and stared at the screen.

Slowly I turned to the group of young African-Americans who were sitting on a couch nearby me sitting in silence and asked, "Did Dodge really just use the words and voice of Dr. King to sell pickup trucks?"

They just nodded quietly, as shocked by what they'd seen as I (and millions of other people) were.

But what's done is done, and Dodge is already facing the heat for the decision - and it's too bad in a sense because the actual words and images were pretty thought-provoking and inspiring, as was the music.

If you haven't seen the commercial give it a watch before this Youtube clip is taken down and Dodge tries to shelve the commercial permanently.

As someone who used to write ad-copy, my sense is that Dodge could have pulled this commercial off using Dr. King's words if they had just stuck to the images of people helping one another - but the insertion of images of Ram pickup trucks turned it into a manipulative hustle instead of a meaningful meditation on the current state of American society under this chaotic president.

It's too bad no black advertising or marketing executive got a chance to weigh in on it before the decision was made to show it.

Access to meaningful input from a different perspective might have given Dodge pause to consider whether using the sacrosanct words of the one of the most influential civil and human rights leader in history to sell pickup trucks was appropriate.

Chicago's Summer of '66 & The 'Secret' of Summer Camp

King addresses 30,000 in Chicago, July 1966

Earlier today I listened to an interesting NPR segment on All Things Considered on the 50th anniversary of the start of the Chicago Freedom Movement, a series of non-violent marches and protest actions led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., James Bevel, Al Raby and other civil rights leaders to bring national attention to housing discrimination, lack of social services and deplorable living conditions.

The segment, by Cheryl Corley, runs about seven minutes if you didn't get a chance to hear it.

As Corley observed, the Chicago Freedom Movement and the nationwide unrest that followed King's assassination were instrumental in Congress eventually passing the Fair Housing Act in 1968.

From a political standpoint, particularly the 2016 presidential race, the timing of the anniversary of the start of the push to dismantle systematic housing segregation based on race in Chicago is made even more relevant to issues impacting the American landscape in the 21st century.

The pushback against federal laws against housing segregation were illustrated by the troubling details revealed in Jonathan Mahler and Steve Eder's Saturday New York Times, article, 'No Vacancies' For Blacks: How Donald Trump Got His Start And Was First Accused of Bias, an exhaustive analysis of the policy of intentional racial discrimination practiced by Fred C. Trump and his son Donald during the early 1970's when the Republican front-runner was serving as president of his father's New York real estate management company.

The structural inequities in American institutions and industries based on race, ethnicity and nationality are so much a part of the national dialog and mainstream media coverage these days.

Oprah & Ava DuVernay on the current THR cover

Over the past couple years few industries have been brought into the spotlight for massive disparities in hiring and employment opportunities based on race and gender in the way that film and television have.

The topic of race all but dominated the 2016 Oscars as the Twitter hashtag #OscarsSoWhite became a pervasive global meme and an embarrassing bruise on the face of the American film industry.

To be fair, in the wake of this year's Academy Awards, a number of executives from the studio, production, casting, union and agency side of the industry have undertaken or committed to efforts to bring more racial and gender diversity to Hollywood.

I think The Hollywood Reporter deserves a measure of credit for making that discussion a regular part of it's reporting on, and analysis of, the professional side of the industry it serves.

For example, the cover of the August 26th issue of THR features Oprah Winfrey and Selma director Ava Duvernay, an alternative cover photo by Miller Mobley featured on the cover story's title page is pictured above.

Principal cast members of Queen Sugar 

In the same issue in which Winfrey and DuVernay discuss inclusion in Hollywood and Queen Sugar, Winfrey's latest television project for her OWN cable channel, there's also an interesting piece by Carson Griffith.

An article that offers insight into why it's such a challenge for people of color and people of modest means of all ethnicities to break into the notoriously closed country-clubby ranks of Hollywood.


A place where too often, one's choice of college, drama program, agency representation and (very often) pedigree and parental lineage, often function as the gateway towards the critical and exclusive kinds of social networking opportunities that unlock the door to working in the industry.

As the opening of Griffith's article titled "The East Coast Camps That Shaped Hollywood" observes:

"Here's a little secret Ivy League schools don't want you to know, lest the influence of their alumni networks be diminished: In Hollywood, it's not just who you know, it's where you went to summer camp."

Click the link directly above and check it out, the article is a quick read at only two pages but it reveals a list of some of the exclusive summer camps, many but not all of them Jewish camps that stress a religious curriculum for the attendees, located in rural parts of Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, Wisconsin, Ontario, Massachusetts and New York state.

Girls start the day at Camp Kenwood

The alumni who attended these camps as kids reads like a Who's Who of Hollywood and the entertainment industry: SNL producer Lorne Michaels, CNN head Jeff Zucker, Bob Dylan, writer-directors Joel and Ethan Cohen, Ben Affleck, 60 Minutes icon Mike Wallace, CNN host Wolf Blitzer, Bradley Cooper, Neil Simon, Lena Dunham and Robert Downey, Jr. to name just a few.

These camps can cost anywhere from $5,000 for a three-week session at French Woods in the Catskills where David Blaine and Zoey Deschanel attended.

Or up to between $8,000 to $13,000 for a seven-week session at a place like Camp Modin in Maine, or Camp Kenwood in New Hampshire.

Obviously no one is going to fault any parent for having the means to send their kids to places like these during the summer months, and not every kid who attends is destined for stardom, success or a c-level corner office.

But the fact that some well-known Los Angeles and New York-based casting agents attend some of these camps to scout young acting or directing talent, or that many parents utilize these kinds of camps as important networking opportunities, or that some camp directors actually visit potential attendee's homes the fall before summer camp as part of the evaluation / application process reflects the inherent exclusivity of Hollywood.

235-acre Camp Towanda in the Poconos, PA

Let's be honest, there are a lot of kids of all races, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds whose parents don't have $5,000 to $13,000 to send their kid to one of these camps to take advantage of first class facilities and top-of-the-line professional instructors and teachers - kids who might have the raw talent and willingness to put in the work to be successful in the arts, music, science or business.

As Oprah observed of inclusion during the THR interview, and which I believe applies to all people regardless of age, gender, race or ethnicity:

"When Sidney Poitier came to my school [in South Africa], he gave a gift of 550 movies to the girls. He thought if you watch these 550 movies, they'll be your education for life. He wrote to the girls that his dream for them was to be able to sit at the table of the future where the world's decisions would be made. I realize now that what he was saying is to be included, to be valued as a person who has something to contribute."

My sense is that when Hollywood finds ways to help provide real opportunities of worth, value and challenge to young kids who dream of tapping into and developing their own creative or professional potential but who don't come from households of means or privilege, that's where the real work of making inclusion a part of the foundation of the industry will begin.

Maybe not every kid in America will get to sit at the table Sidney Poitier spoke of, but at the least they deserve the opportunity to be shown the way to get to the room where the table is.

In this country we spend a lot of time shaking our heads at skyrocketing rates of opioid abuse, gun violence, obesity and plummeting test scores in some public school systems.

When you look at the comparisons of what states spend on education versus incarceration, doesn't it make sense to find ways to make sure that all elementary thru middle school students in America have at least some kind of meaningful summer time camp experience?

Considering that some states like New York spend up to $60,000 a year in taxpayer funds to house an inmate in a correctional facility; spending $10,000 per summer to put a kid in camp where he or she could learn an array of positive skills and enjoy human interaction experiences that could shape them for life in so many ways seems like a pretty good bargain when you think about it.

The Unvarnished King & The Dream

My guess is many of you reading this had today off in recognition of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; the wheels of the real estate industry roll on so it was a work day for me.

Fortunately there was some excellent MLK Day programming to listen along to online throughout the day on WNYC.org and I got to hear some really insightful topic discussions revolving around some of the same socioeconomic issues that Dr. King addressed more than forty seven years ago.

Which is both fascinating and troubling.

Some interesting excerpts from WNYC's 10th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration held this past weekend were played on this morning's edition of  The Brian Lehrer Show.

The event was held at the Apollo in Harlem and I think WNYC did an excellent job of truly honoring King's legacy and mission by focusing on issues that are both topical and current including the impact of institutional racism on schools, access to higher education and justice - and the struggle of American society to recognize and acknowledge White Privilege.

One of the most interesting segments today was Terry Gross' Fresh Air interview with Regina Mason, who's great-great-great grandfather William Grimes wrote what is now considered one of the very first slave narratives published in America in 1825, "Life of William Grimes, The Runaway Slave." 

Mason discovered Grimes after years of family history research and as our own family's resident historian, I was moved by her story and understand the the challenges of finding out details of African-American ancestors who were born into slavery in the United States before 1850.

As Mason observed in her interview today, the existence of Grimes' book and her subsequent efforts to connect with the descendants of the slave-holding family who owned her great-great-great grandfather, helped to bring into reality Dr. King's "dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood."

Dr. King remains one of the greatest and most influential figures in American history; possibly the world.

One who undoubtedly deserves a federal holiday and, in my humble opinion, the argument could be made that his image should be chiseled onto the face of Mount Rushmore alongside those of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt.

If Washington is regarded as the father of our nation, surely King can be considered its conscience.

So for understandable reasons there is a tendency to deify King in this country and view him more as a mythical figure than as a man.

One of the most interesting pieces on King I read today came from essayist Chauncey DeVega, who reminded readers of his blog Indomitable today that during his life, King was frequently viewed as a radical and an enemy - particularly after he began to speak out publicly against the Vietnam War in 1967.

From the vantage point of 2015, it's remarkable to read the list of politicians and activists (see the link directly above) who publicly berated or even reviled King when his opposition to the war in Southeast Asia turned major American newspapers including The New York Times, Washington Post and leading African-American newspapers against him.

DeVega cites a fascinating article by Obery M. Hendricks posted earlier today on Salon.com entitled, "The 'Macroethics' of Martin Luther King, Jr.: When He Spoke Out Against the Vietnam War Even His Supporters Deserted Him - Here's How He Endured." 

If you take the time to read anything on King today, I'd suggest you check out Hendricks' Salon.com piece.

For later generations for whom the civil rights struggles of the 40's, 50's and 60's exist as distant history, King will arguably best be remembered less for leading non-violent protests against segregated housing in places like Cicero, Illinois, or for labor rights for African-American sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee - but for "The Speech".

King's "I Have a Dream" speech remains one of the most significant and moving pieces of American oratory in the nations history; on par with Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg in the pantheon of U.S. history as far as I'm concerned.

One that encapsulates the vision of a complex and learned thinker in one speech.

Dr. King, August 28, 1963 [Photo - Bob Adelman]

Back in December of 2007 when I was still first trying out the blog as an online platform to share my thoughts, I wrote one of my first blogs about Dr. King after hearing an interview with photographer Bob Adelman on The Tavist Smiley Show.

Adelman, a Long Island, New York native, helped to chronicle the civil rights struggle with his photos and was taking pictures of King at the podium on August 28, 1963 as the speech was being delivered.



That's one of Adelman's iconic photos (pictured above) of King towards the end of the speech as he's shouting the words, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

According to Adelman who was there and shot three rolls of King at the podium (you can see how close he was), about twelve minutes into the speech as the applause swelled after a moving passage, gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, (who was seated near King on the podium during the speech and was the only woman),  overcome with emotion by the passage, yelled out to King, "Tell  'em about the dream Martin!"

Adelman said that in response, King took his speech, folded the papers up and put them in his pocket, and proceeded to deliver the remaining approximately five minutes and eighteen seconds of the actual "I Have a Dream" section of the speech totally off the cuff without notes.

Jackson was close to King and was a long-time supporter of the movement and Adelman suggested that King's "Dream" was a topic he'd spoken about privately with Jackson before.

Regardless, the knowledge that Dr. King delivered those words straight from the heart, without notes still gives me goosebumps, as a writer who loves words it leaves me astounded.

During a pivotal moment of American history on a hot summer day with the statue of Abraham Lincoln looking down and the eyes of world watching in awe; a timeless example of the unvarnished King.