From Speech to Sermon -- MLK's Improvisation

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, issued at the midpoint of the American Civil War, and the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a moment that marked the spiritual summit of the civil rights movement. In place and time, they are joined at the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall in Washington, the nation's shrine to the president who signed the proclamation declaring the slaves of the Confederate states free and the King who, 100 later, spoke to the disappointments and dreams of their descendants. Today, the words of both men — authors of arguably the two greatest speeches in American history, the Gettysburg Address and the “I Have a Dream” speech (pdf) — are etched in stone and in memory at the Lincoln and King Memorials in Washington.