Martin Luther King Jr.
Edgecombe County, Edgecombe County, North Carolina
Marker Inscription
Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 1968. In his speech, Nov. 27, 1962, in gym 200 yards S.E., civil rights leader delivered refrain "I have a dream," used in Lincoln Memorial address, 1963.
Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
The Story
Long before his 1963 address at the Lincoln Memorial made the phrase immortal, Martin Luther King Jr. tried out the refrain "I have a dream" in a November 1962 speech delivered in a gymnasium just southeast of this marker. The moment captures the civil rights movement in its building years, when King crisscrossed the South refining the words that would define a generation. This eastern North Carolina stop is one of the places where that message took shape.
Why it matters
It documents an early, lesser-known airing of the most famous refrain in American oratory, grounding a national milestone in a specific Southern community.
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Related people
- · Martin Luther King Jr.
Related events
- · Civil Rights Movement
Themes & tags
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