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

varnull.adityamukerjee.net

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

#141

Post by wmeredith »

chimeracoder wrote: post #89
ignostic wrote: post #24

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 sou…

> The speech is readily found by those who know how to Google. Unfortunately, textbook are still a/the standard source of information in most public schools. Yes, this raises separate questions about the way that we structure our education system, but that's not the issue at hand. The speech is readily found by those willing to go out of their way to look for it, but it is not included in most textbooks, because thos…

> Unfortunately, textbook are still a/the standard source of information in most public schools.

Eh, have you talked a teenager lately? I believe the standard source of information in public schools is a smartphone.

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

#144

Post by res0nat0r »

nostromo wrote: post #113
antc wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Profits made from royalties go primarily into funding The King Center. http://www.thekingcenter.org/

And who works for the King Center? MLK's kids. So yes, royalties go to the King Center, which at least in part, go to his children, including MLK III. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_III

And this is bad...how? They are working to further MLK's goals.

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

#145

Post by Zimahl »

e12e wrote: post #123
Zimahl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MLK decided to use peaceful civil disobedience following the lead of Ghandi. Peaceful protest doesn't lead to a majority backlash, whereas aggressive, militant tactics do. MLK and his movement are remembered for boycotts and protest leading to the Civil Rights Act. The Black Panthers are remembered as being violent and divisive. For all the good you do can be wiped out in one instant by a single bad.

"Dr. King’s policy was that nonviolence would achieve the gains for black people in the United States. His major assumption was that if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That’s very good. He only made one fallacious assumption: In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none." -- Stokely Ca…

The exact type of rhetoric from a Black Panther that doesn't help his cause one iota. This is why MLK gets a national holiday and Carmichael is a footnote.

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

#146

Post by masklinn »

zaphar wrote: post #127
krschultz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't think references to religion are a problem. My AP English class read parts of the Bible itself - because it has significant literary and historic importance even if you don't view it as a religious text. This is in a secular public school in a very liberal state only recently. Nobody objected, because if you start going down that road, you will have to throw out pretty much everything written before 18…

Many schools do start down that road. Having the Bible in your classroom even for purely non religious reasons has gotten people in trouble before and many schools just don't want the hassle so they outright ban it.

Do you have sources for that?

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

#148

Post by masklinn »

danielweber wrote: post #59
masklinn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If schools really wanted to teach it, it would be well within fair use laws for them to show the whole thing. No, not a chance. Even a few paragraphs would likely get them smashed, especially if they're the most interesting of the speech. > First one that comes to mind is its length. Have people stopped studying books or something? > Secondly, there is a lot of religious imagery in the speech. I could certainly ima…

Schools have successfully used copyrighted books all the time in literature classes without problems. You can't run it off yourself on the mimeograph machine but just go buy 30 copies and leave them in the classroom.

> Schools have successfully used copyrighted books all the time in literature classes without problems.

That is a completely different issue, classrooms have a specific exception (USC title 17 chapter 1 § 110 (1)) which allows "performance or display of a work by instructors or pupils in the course of face-to-face teaching activities of a nonprofit educational institution, in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction".

The issue at hand here is that textbook publishers can't (or won't) include the speech or even major excerpts of it. And although a teacher can buy the speech DVD and play it, it's not a very good support to study the speech.

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

#149

Post by lifeisstillgood »

It's interesting the version from the US National Archives (http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf) has (top of page 5) different wording to the speech (IIRC)

  My own little children ... shall be judged not by the color of their skin
Vs

  My four small children ... shall not be judged by ...
"Shall be judged not" is the speech and just the memory with its crackling soundtrack gets me. It's odd how even with a prepared speech he still belted out a better version on the day.

Edit: oh yes - anyone wanting to improve their accent before the next YC interviews could do a lot lot worse than have MLK playing through their headphones each day. Learn from the very best.

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

#150

Post by cydonian_monk »

cglee wrote: post #105
slg wrote: 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…

A secular education doesn't mean it's devoid of religious literature. On the contrary, it probably means you get to explore religious texts from a variety of cultures and religions.

That was the case in my school. We covered (nearly) every major religion, how it formed, how it spread, impact on the societies involved, etc. Did it upset parents? Undoubtedly. But it was a non-issue, unlike the ban on soft drinks (which was blown so far out of proportion it became comical).
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