The speech “ I have a dream”, heyday of the civil rights movement
Sarah Fila-Bakabadio, historian of American and African-American studies and associate professor at CY Cergy Paris University, discusses the historical context in which Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream” speech took place on August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial. an important event in the struggle for the rights of black Americans. “We are at the height of the civil rights movement, which has actually existed since the late 19th century. This is a time when the movement needs an efficiency boost, as 1954 saw the first law enacted to desegregate schools. And in 1963, one of the longtime activists, Asa Philip Randolph, believed that it would take a momentous event for then-President Lyndon Johnson to pass bills restoring civil rights to African American and nonwhite populations thereafter had received the end of the civil war. So he is bringing together a number of civil rights groups, including the Martin Luther King Association, to organize this event and call on as many Americans as possible from every state to join them in the United States capital. States and at this special site of the Lincoln Memorial. The Lincoln Memorial is the site honoring President Abraham Lincoln, who abolished slavery exactly 100 years to the day before this date. »