I Have a Dream: Trivia

    I Have a Dream: Trivia

      Marlon Brando was in attendance at the March on Washington. He might not have been a contender in On The Waterfront, but he was certainly a contender in the Civil Rights Movement. Bob Dylan was also there. (Source)

      The March on Washington cost around $30,000. Compare that to President Obama's first inauguration, which cost $170 million dollars by some estimates. As Dylan might have put it, "the times they are a-changin." (Source)

      Martin Luther King, Jr. almost pulled an all-nighter, staying up until 4 a.m. the night before the speech. A little cramming never hurt anyone. (Source)

      Though "I Have a Dream" was largely improvised, the written speech was a hybrid of several previous speeches King had delivered. So, yeah, it was a sequel. At least he got some practice in. (Source)

      After the March on Washington inspired a big media response, the FBI released a memo describing MLK as "the most dangerous Negro…in this nation from the standpoint of communism." FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was the Michael Jordan of paranoia. (Source)

      The militant African American leader Malcolm X said of King's receiving of the Nobel Prize: "he [got] a peace award before the war is over." And Malcolm wasn't talking about the Vietnam War. (Source)