0:00 Out past the porch railing, you can hear a train whistle way off down the valley, carrying clean through the August heat.0:08 It gets you thinking about how a single sound can carry across a whole country.0:14 Last week we stood backstage at history's loudest rooms, listening to what the speaker felt right before the curtain pulled back.0:24 And August twenty-eighth, nineteen sixty-three, was no golden picnic.0:29 No, not by half, love.0:30 I have got my brew here, the cat is curled on my knee, and I can tell you: behind the scenes in Washington, nerves were stretched thin as wire.0:41 People forget that.0:42 They look back and see a grand painting, but that morning, the organizers were terrified.0:49 The sound system had even been sabotaged the night before.0:53 That is the honest truth.0:55 Down at the Lincoln Memorial, folks were working in the dark just to splice wires together so anyone could hear a word.1:03 And the White House had thousands of troops on standby because everyone in authority expected a riot.1:11 Over two hundred and fifty thousand people gathered under that scorching sun, standing packed round the Reflecting Pool.1:20 Packed shoulder to shoulder, singing spirituals, peaceful as a church choir.1:25 But backstage?1:26 Mercy.1:27 You had the Big Six civil rights leaders practically having rows behind the marble pillars.1:33 Young John Lewis—bless him, he was just a lad of twenty-three then—had written this fiery speech ready to tear strips off the federal government.1:44 He was fixing to say there wouldn't be any cooling-off period.1:48 Now, I know how that sounds, but old A.1:51 Philip Randolph had to pull John Lewis aside right behind Lincoln's statue.1:57 He looked at him and said, John, for the sake of unity, we have got to moderate this.2:03 So Lewis sat there on the steps, crossing out lines with a pencil minutes before walking to the microphones.2:11 Everyone pulling in different directions.2:14 Malcolm X was outside calling the whole thing a circus, saying it had been softened up to please white politicians.2:22 Martin had Birmingham hanging over his shoulders, jail cells, and the weight of the entire movement resting right on his chest.2:32 He was only supposed to speak for four minutes.2:35 The program was running late, folks were wilting in the heat, and he had a typed draft sitting on the lectern that didn't have the word dream in it anywhere.2:46 That is the bit that gives me shivers every single time.2:51 He started out reading the text, plain and measured, talking about the hundred years since Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and how the promissory note had bounced with insufficient funds.3:05 He was leaning on the page.3:07 Solid, but tied down to the paper, like an engine stuck in low gear on a steep grade.3:13 And then she called out.3:15 Mahalia Jackson was sitting right there behind him on the platform.3:20 The greatest gospel singer in the world, and she just leaned forward and shouted, Tell them about the dream, Martin!3:29 Tell them about the dream!3:31 Yes sir.3:31 She had heard him preach it months earlier down in Detroit.3:35 When she shouted that, King stopped.3:38 If you watch the old film, you can see him slide his papers to the left of the lectern.3:44 He stopped looking down.3:46 He grabbed the edges of that wooden stand, looked straight out over two hundred and fifty thousand faces, and shifted gears into a Sunday morning pulpit.3:57 He threw the script away entirely!4:00 You could hear that great rolling rhythm take over, repeating I have a dream, eight times over, building higher with every sentence.4:10 When he said he had a dream that his four little children would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, the hair stood up on everyone's arms.4:23 He took sixteen minutes instead of four, and nobody moved an inch.4:27 He brought the rhythm of an East Tennessee mountain church straight to the steps of the nation's temple.4:35 But here is the part that sits heavy.4:38 While the crowd was cheering and people were weeping in the water, the authorities were already drawing their knives.4:46 Aye.4:47 Just two days later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation sent a memo calling him the most dangerous man in America, scheming to tear him down.4:57 The golden glow we paint over that day was never there for the man who actually stood on the marble.5:04 It took blood, and another two years of marches, to get the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act through Congress.5:13 That speech wasn't a finished victory; it was a promissory note he threw down like a gauntlet.5:20 Right then, love.5:21 It is easy to look at the statue and forget the sweat, isn't it?5:26 But you have to remember the courage it took to put down the paper and speak what was true in his heart.5:33 Night night, sleep tight, chuck.5:36 Well.5:36 That is about the size of it.5:38 We will see you down the line.
