Stuart Connelly's BEHIND THE DREAM

BEHIND THE DREAM
The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation

Author: Jones, Clarence B.
Author: Connelly, Stuart

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With the assistance of filmmaker and Huffington Post contributor Connelly, Jones, who was present at the creation of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, revisits the forces that generated the 1963 March on Washington and that animated the speech that now represents an entire era.

Essential reading about a moment of surpassing political and moral importance






On August 28, 1963, a photographer working for the United States Information Agency (USIA) took a picture which has become an iconic image of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The photograph, in the holdings of the National Archives, is of a young African-American girl, holding a March on Washington banner and concentrating intently on the scene before her. The image has been reproduced countless times in history books, on calendars and most recently in the National Park Service brochure for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, DC. Edith Lee-Payne of Detroit, Michigan, celebrated her 12th birthday by attending the March on Washington with her mother. She had no idea she had been photographed, let alone that over the years her face had become so well-known. Recently her sister saw the photograph in a calendar celebrating African-American history. She told Ms. Lee-Payne, who says she is still "in shock." Also appearing in the video is National Archives supervisory archivist Ed McCarter and the photographer to whom the image is attributed, Rowland Scherman. In addition to the famous image of Ms. Lee-Payne, many other USIA photos from that day are shown