There was a move earlier in the year on "Internet Freedom Day' for everyone to share the video of the speech, anywhere they could, in defiance of the copyright. Not sure what traction there was.
http://boingboing.net/2013/01/18/its-internet-freedom-day-ti...
Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”
151–160 of 234 posts
Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”
#152Earlier 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…
Even a few paragraphs would likely get them smashed, especially if they're the most interesting of the speech. I second this point. Under the Fair Use doctrine, courts consider not just the amount of text used, but the so-called substantiality of the excerpt. In other words, even a small portion of the text may not be fair use if it's especially iconic and representative of the whole.
I can tell you that in middle school at a public school in New Orleans, I had to read, summarize and write a paper reaction to the speech, as well as having watched the video.
Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”
#153This is a much, much better article on the same subject: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-you-wont-see-or-h...
Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”
#154It's on YouTube, although I don't know if it's complete:
Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”
#155But... It's here? http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf
Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”
#156Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”
#157I've seen and read the entire speech dozens of times: In school, I distinctly remember being given the entire speech transcription and talking about it as a class on more than one occasion. In elementary school, we would have an actor come on our "morning announcements" and re-enact the speech each year. One teacher showed it to us on YouTube in it's entirety. Is my experience really that unusual?
I don't think so. I distinctly remember discussing it multiple times throughout grade school and watching it at least once.
Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”
#158I don't know about you all, but public school did an abysmal job of teaching me any US history post-WWII. It's like nothing has happened in this country since the women's suffrage movement, with WWII a hasty footnote. Honestly, I think the politics were too hot to handle through the 1980s, when cultural divides arout Vietnam were very fresh, and those from King's time still not too distant. What is being taught in high school nowadays?
Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”
#159I 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 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…
Yeah Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God was in my textbook in American lit (~2001).
Re: Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”
#160I 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…
There was a PBS Documentary, "Eyes on the Prize" which we bought on DVD as part of our home school curriculum. Then it was taken off the market as a dispute arose between the King family estate[1] and PBS. The King family gave only enough copy right to show the program on PBS, once. And any other use was not sanctioned, we loaned our copy to the high school so that they could show it to their students. It was such a…
Ah, it's back on sale! Thanks for the link, I didn't know they had put it back up.