“It was with this odd start, hiding in plain sight, that 12 hours before the March on Washington began, Martin gathered with a small group of advisers to hammer out the themes of his speech.”Įven though King was happy with the draft, he had wanted to get as much input as possible. “We met in the lobby rather than in a suite, under the assumption that the lobby would be harder to wiretap,” Jones wrote in the Washington Post. “I would deliver four strong walls and he would use his God-given abilities to furnish the place so it felt like home.”Įven though they knew the importance of the speech, with the logistics, they only gathered as a group at the Willard Hotel the evening before the speech. “When it came to my speech drafts, often acted like an interior designer,” Jones said, according to The Guardian. The first draft was written by Stanley Levison and Clarence Jones, two of his advisers.
To carefully craft the right words, King turned to his inner circle. Even though he was limited to five minutes, his goal was clear: To make a speech with impact on the nation “like the Gettysburg address.” He confided in a team of trusted advisors The three major television networks at the time - ABC, CBS and NBC - had all promised to cover the event, so King knew the stakes were high. Philip Randolph had reached out to him and other prominent figures in the movement to organize the march followed by three hours of speeches. The Baptist minister, who was also the head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was known as a powerful orator, but the bulk of his audience had been within the African American community.
He had already been a leader in the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and the Greensboro sit-in movement in 1960 and was known for his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail, where he was taken after a peaceful demonstration. King wanted the speech to be 'like the Gettysburg Address'īefore he stepped up to the podium that day, King was already known on the national stage for his civil rights work. waves to participants at the March on Washington on AugPhoto: Bettman/Getty Images
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