Martin Luther King Jr.: “My Dream Has Turned into a Nightmare.”
About 50 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King on May 8, 1967 in an interview with Sander Vanocur said, “That dream I had that day has turned into a nightmare.” In an extraordinary, wide-ranging conversation, King took acknowledged the sole purpose and revising moments he’d gone through since his most famous speech. He expressed to Vanocur that his old pursuit of happiness through the civil rights movement was not the way anymore and then come to realization.
Things were changing for King since 1963, John F. Kennedy life was taken away. Kennedy had been impressed by King and had delivered his own nationally televised speech on civil rights in June of that year to complimented. Lyndon B. Johnson was the President in which the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act was passed, declaring in a memorable 1965 speech to Congress, “We shall overcome.” But by 1967 Johnson had taken the country deeply into the war in Vietnam. Which was something that Dr. King would go against.
By 1967, King also had to contend with the fact that he was no longer the unchallenged leader of the civil rights movement. Increasingly rejected his message of non-violence preaching “Black Power,” and encouraging oppressed blacks to fight back. In growing numbers, they did. And following the victories of the early Sixties in desegregating schools and lunch counters and securing the right to vote, King took on the far more difficult task of improving poverty and economic injustice.
We best know him for his impact on civil rights, bringing all people together, and his ‘I Have a Dream Speech’ but it would be years later that he would no longer be about.
A lot had changed about Dr. King’s motto since 1963. Preaching black power and encouraging oppressed blacks to fight back.