Who Told Martin Luther King to Tell Them About the Dream?

The speech Martin Luther King Jr. had prepared for the March on Washington was not the speech he gave.

It was a good speech — written the night before, polished, politically measured. He had been advised to keep it crisp. The march organizers wanted something that would play well in the news cycle.

He was near the end of his prepared remarks when Mahalia Jackson — the gospel singer standing just behind him — called out:

'Tell them about the dream, Martin!'

He had used the dream imagery before, in smaller speeches. His advisors had actually told him not to use it — it was getting worn, they said.

He paused. He pushed his prepared text aside.

And then he began: 'I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.'

Clarence Jones, one of the men who helped draft the original speech, was standing a few feet away. He turned to someone next to him and said: 'These people don't know it, but they're about to go to church.'

The speech that changed history happened because one person in the right moment said: I know you have something greater. Say it.

Everyone who does something remarkable has a Mahalia Jackson. The question is whether you listen when she calls out.