I Have A Dream Google Doodle

On August 28^th 2013, the Google Doodlers celebrated the speech which was delivered on the same day fifty years earlier in 1963 with an I Have A Dream Google Doodle. The speech was delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. His iconic speech was delivered during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedoms at the Lincoln Memorial. Many political commentators believe his speech to be a defining moment in the American Civil Rights Movement. King’s speech was delivered in reaction to the civil rights legislation which then President Kennedy had proposed for the June of the subsequent year.

The I Have A Dream Google Doodle can be viewed by clicking here.

The speech was initially intended to be a tribute to the Gettysburg Address delivered by Abraham Lincoln. This idea was dismissed due to concerns about keeping the crowd calm during the demonstration. Instead, the speech, which became known as “I have a dream”, was delivered by King that day.

The iconic line “I have a dream” is in fact an abbreviation. The full quote is as follows, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!”

It is perhaps a little known fact that the speech delivered was a combination of previous drafts. The speech which King was meant to deliver on that day was titled “Normalcy, Never Again”. However the iconic ending to his speech was not included in this speech. The ending resulted from a prompt by a member of the crowd. This member was the African-American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. She shouted to King from crowd, saying “Tell them about the dream, Martin!” This resulted in King stopping the planned speech and instead preaching about dreams. The speech can be viewed in its entirety by clicking here.

Following the event, the speech was highly publicised by a wide variety of new press outlets. The overwhelming majority of these commentaries focussed on King’s eloquent delivery and his ability to touch the crowd emotionally. In the years 1963 and 1964, Time magazine named King as Man of the Year. In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Despite the popularity of the speech, it was only published in its entirety fifteen years after King’s death in 1963.

This is not the first time which Google has paid homage to Martin Luther King Jr with an I Have A Dream Google Doodle. Nearly every year the search engine has celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a dedicated doodle. This year was no exception, you can still view the Google doodle for Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2013 by clicking here.