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Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

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Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

#21

Post by VonGuard »

scassidy wrote: post #16
andrewljohnson wrote: post #7

Heard it during MLK Day on NPR, was absolutely floored. Also, MLK's comments on the Vietnam War were remarkably prescient, and apply just fine to our terrible wars today. If you still believe that the USG is not, in places and at times, terribly evil and corrupt, you probably don't know about the USG's efforts to kill MLK: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/31/mlk.fbi.conspiracy/

It doesn't sound like they tried to kill him. They tried to prove an alignment with the communist party (and failed miserably). I can't believe the FBI honestly thought a note would drive him to suicide.

The FBI was doing a whole lot more than trying to link him to the communists. It was standard operation to infiltrate all civil rights groups. I don;t know specifically what they did to King's org, but the Black Panthers were fucked by the FBI. Malcom X's body guard, for example, was an undercover FBI agent. Most of the civil rights groups had undercover FBI inside them, and in high ranking positions.

Yet another example of our government hating our freedoms.... Oh wait, I thought those were the terrorists....

Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

#23

Post by slg »

I have to disagree with part of the premise. While the speech is copyrighted, that might not be the reason most people haven't read or seen the entirety of the speech. If schools really wanted to teach it, it would be well within fair use laws for them to show the whole thing. There are probably a variety of other reasons why you don't see this speech taught in schools.

First one that comes to mind is its length. Unlike the Gettysburg Address, this isn't some short speech that could be easily recited from memory.

Secondly, there is a lot of religious imagery in the speech. I could certainly imagine people objecting to having the speech presented in a secular school.

Finally and probably most importantly, what do speeches really teach us? They aren't particularly valuable outside of context. How many of the speeches listed here (http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html) are really taught in school?

Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

#24

Post by ignostic »

The speech is readily found by those who know how to Google. Perhaps more Americans would have read the speech if not for the crazy copyright laws, but I think most people haven't read it simply because most people aren't interested in reading historical speeches.

It's a little off-topic and a little cynical, but I think the larger issue here is that we've watered our teaching of history (and most things) down to soundbites and simple explanations. What we learned about Columbus, MLK, and all the founding fathers were stripped of everything controversial to create flawless heroes with views no PTA member would find offensive.

How many of the influential speeches in history have you read? I think Time's list is a good starting place. These were all inspiring, influential, and are all readily available for free:

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/...

If you have read even half of these, maybe then I'll buy the copyright argument.

Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

#28

Post by CoffeeDregs »

unreal37 wrote: post #15

The counter argument, though, is "How many people have read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address"? Many know "Four score and seven years ago", but how many know "we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground"? I think this says more about our "sound-bite" culture than how protective the family is of the audio.

>The counter argument, though, is "How many >people have read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address"?

Your counter-argument was about as valid as saying "How many people have needed freedom?"

In any case, your counter-argument seems unrelated to the OP's post... Whether or not people would read or listen to the entire speech, the OP was arguing that copyright laws are impeding the creation of new content, the consumption of existing, important content and society's understanding of itself.

>I think this says more about our "sound-bite" culture than >how protective the family is of the audio.

Ironically, your comment represents the 'sound-bite' culture quite effectively.

Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

#29

Post by jared314 »

This completely ignores that companies will sell, and edit, popular public domain works for a profit, if they can.

It was initially a defensive copyright by the King, Jr. estate. Fox Records started selling records of the speech in 1968 [1]. And, CBS was rebroadcasting the speech for commercial purposes [2]. Only later did his family more strictly control the work and likeness of King, Jr. Otherwise, we might have seen the Dr. King, Jr. version of the Obama-hitler posters of 2008, or his face on a box of children's cereal.

[1] http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/mlk_spee...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_of_Martin_Luther_King,_J....

Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”

#30

Post by jerf »

unreal37 wrote: post #15

The counter argument, though, is "How many people have read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address"? Many know "Four score and seven years ago", but how many know "we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground"? I think this says more about our "sound-bite" culture than how protective the family is of the audio.

I'm pretty sure we read the whole thing in school. It was not long.

Of course, probably only about 10% of us really understood what he meant by that phrase you quoted, but hey, at least the school system tried.

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