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

varnull.adityamukerjee.net

41–50 of 234 posts

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

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 exa…

Can infiltrating the Black Panthers really be considered "anti-freedoms"? What freedoms, exactly? The freedom to be violent?

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

#44
the part that disgusts me is that the estate was paid seven hundred thousand dollars to use the words on the monument erected in his honor. I posted this the other day from an article in the Washington Times, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6290716 which leads to http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-you-wont-see-or-h...

I know copyright and such laws have their place, but when it comes down to it, this estate is just greedy above all else.

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

#46
post #23

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. Unl…

I read the speech in English class when studying different types of writing assignments. We examined it for its structure rather than its content. Studying speeches may prove valuable when preparing oral presentations for instance.

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

#47

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.

Unsurprisingly, King saw the strongly worded letter as an invitation for him to take his own life, as did an official investigation in 1976 which concluded that the letter "clearly implied that suicide would be a suitable course of action for Dr. King."

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/01/king-like-all-frauds-yo...

http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report...

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

#48

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 se…

Given the technology of the era, how else where people supposed to gain access to it? And so what if they made a profit doing it, so long as other companies or individuals had the right to distribute it also. In the end more copies would have been distributed and listened to.

And as for the "MLK-Hitler poster" argument, that would be fair use and wouldn't be stopped by copyright.

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

#49
post #31

I remember hearing the story of how the text was written and at the last minute, as copies were being made, the lawyer for King added the Circle C and copyright info. Apparently the King family has benefitted financially by that last minute addition. Frankly, I can't imagine a better way to reward Dr. King, and his family, for such an amazing event and turning point in our history. It's not like the money is going to…

Unless copyright law has changed since then, the circle c doesn't matter. The way copyright works in the US, the rights to any creative work are automatically reserved for the author.

Yes, this aspect of copyright law has changed since the Sixties. The circled-C symbol (or the equivalent words) were required before 1989:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_copyright_law#Cop...

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

#50
post #23

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. Unl…

I disagreed with its title, because I have read it.
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