访谈录 2008-09-04&09-06 讲述：记忆中的马丁路德金（在线收听）

We are standing at the Lincoln Memorial in the spot where Dr. Martin Luther King made that speech that will become part of the fabric of our nation. Imagine this handful of Americans literally rubbed shoulders with history that they standing or sitting near Dr. King, we had a hard time tracking them down and they had some surprising things to tell us.

August 28th, 1963, the quarter of a million gathered at the Lincoln Memorial that day, knew they'd heard something momentous.

I still have a dream, it is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

And he started speaking, and it was amazing, err, it was transformed from a type of perhaps festival atmosphere, to almost religious, I suppose.

We wouldn't hear a thing drab, I will never forget it. I'll never forget it. 

Giama spent months tracking down those who stood beside King as he spoke, witnesses captured by the lens of history. Only a handful are still alive, Gordon Gundrum then 25 years old was assigned to protect King that day, that's him standing in the park ranger uniform.

It was like a great symphony, even to try and describe it today. The hair on the back of my neck stands. Gundrum says that moment with King opened his eyes to the Civil Rights Movement. He shied away from interviews for decades, but now wants the world to remember what King managed to do with just one speech. What he did that day here I felt was very close to God and when I think of doing good things, such as charity, and I think that is the result of the ideals that Dr. King had.

For Charles Jackson, a New Jersey police officer, the assignment to stand (and) watch over King while he spoke was a career highlight he talked about until his death in 1999. He said I almost trembled, what he said was just magic.

Civil Rights leader Dr. Dorothy Height recalls being most struck by King's ability to unite both the crowd and the divided nation with the speech that last just 15 minutes.

We all felt as one. He was talking, not just about some but about all.

For Theresa Walker, a former Freedom Rider, it was King's reference to the dreams he had for his four little children that brought tears to her eyes.

Cuz I have a dream, my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character...

Well, it was my dream also. I have four children then of course every parent or especially a mother wants the world and the country to be as good as it can be. But I had no idea it was going to have the impact that it did have.

But imagine this, as we research the story we learn something brand new never reported before that I Have a Dream was almost cut from King's speech.

The I Have a Dream climax was never in the speech. And we just thought it shouldn't be used. King had given the I Have a Dream speech some 30 times in a month, leading up to the march on Washington. And his chief of staff thought he needed new material.

We felt that he used that climax so many times that it’d be hackneyed and trite.

Dr. Wyatt T. Walker and others stayed up all night on the eve of the march crafting a new dream-free speech. But when King surveyed the crowd, he threw out the new version deciding instead to talk about his dream. I was standing by Washington Monument, and when he said I have a dream today, I said Oh, (expletively delete it).

Were you suggesting what’ve altered history.

 It just shows how much we didn't know. And those who shared that sliver of history with King, say it would be a profound moment of symmetry when Barack Obama takes the stage on the anniversary of the speech that dare to dream about a candidacy like his.

But I think Dr. King would be the first to recognize that our country has moved forward.

But I think it is providential.

It just demonstrates your dreams can come true.