now picnic

Hey! If you've got 17 minutes, watch Martin Luther King's speech at the Lincoln Memorial:



If you don't have 17 minutes ... well, what are you really doing that's so important? I bet you have 17 minutes, don't you? It won't feel like 17 minutes once you get going.

Every time I hear it, I notice new things. This time I was surprised to see in the video how much he's consulting his notes (so much that they move the microphones down about halfway through the speech). But then, at the 12 minute mark, he goes from his notes to his memory and his confidence and power increase so much. It's the "I have a dream"/"Let freedom ring" part and it's short but so impressive.

I was also struck by the big words -- I don't know if a political figure could get away with such lofty rhetorical imagery today:

"One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. ... We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism."

I feel like political advisers might caution against words like "manacles" and average out a lot of the good stuff in a speech like this.

It was also sad to hear how many things haven't changed in 44 years: "We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote." At least everyone can vote now, but it is frustrating to think how few people (of any race) do vote. (64% in the 2004 election: 62 million for Bush, 59 million for Kerry, 68 million people for neither?)