--- title: Martin Luther King Jr. Speeches, Sermons, Texts: 5 to Know description: From a 1956 sermon on the optimism of freedom to an unsettling 1968 speech delivered on the eve of his death, a King expert picks 5 to know. canonical: https://time.com/5221314/martin-luther-king-jr-speeches/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-04-03T22:30:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-12T20:52:16.000Z article:section: History og:title: 5 Things Written by Martin Luther King Jr. That Everyone Should Read, According to an Expert og:description: A King expert chooses the ones to read now og:url: https://time.com/5221314/martin-luther-king-jr-speeches/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2690651ad8e2ceb/69892c61929fad5293bf021b/mlk.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Speaking at Microphones og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 5 Things Written by Martin Luther King Jr. That Everyone Should Read, According to an Expert twitter:description: A King expert chooses the ones to read now twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2690651ad8e2ceb/69892c61929fad5293bf021b/mlk.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 5 Things Written by Martin Luther King Jr. That Everyone Should Read, According to an Expert > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The Highest Stakes [Watch (HLS stream): The Highest Stakes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/KcU2b8wc.m3u8) (7:00)  _Published 2013-08-13. March on Washington organizers were under enormous pressure to plan an event that was orderly and peaceful. John F. Kennedy doubted that they could pull it off._  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Updated: Dec 12, 2023 8:52 PM UTCPublished: Apr 3, 2018 10:30 PM UTC  Dr. Martin Luther King addresses some 2,000 people on the eve of his death—April 3, 1968—giving the speech "I've been to the mountaintop." Dr. Martin Luther King addresses some 2,000 people on the eve of his death—April 3, 1968—giving the speech "I've been to the mountaintop."Bettmann/Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Updated: Dec 12, 2023 8:52 PM UTCPublished: Apr 3, 2018 10:30 PM UTC The words written about [Martin Luther King Jr.](http://time.com/5186446/book-list-mlk-50th-death-anniversary/) during his too-short life and in the decades since his [assassination](http://time.com/5209452/john-lewis-martin-luther-king/) on April 4, 1968, would be impossible to count. King himself left a deep archive of writings, speeches and sermons, too. His spoken orations in particular are a powerful reminder of why he was destined to become part of the pantheon of American icons. [_Step Into History: Learn how to experience the 1963 March on Washington in virtual reality_](http://www.time.com/the-march) “One has to remember that King above all was a preacher,” says Carolyn Calloway-Thomas, chair of African American and African Diaspora Studies at the Indiana University Bloomington and an editor of _Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Sermonic Power of Public Discourse._ While she notes that he was so prolific that it’s near impossible to choose, Calloway-Thomas spoke to TIME about the pieces of King’s work that everyone should know about. They are: ## “The Death of Evil upon the Seashore” (May 17, 1956) _“The death of the Egyptians upon the seashore is a glaring symbol of the ultimate doom of evil in its struggle with good.”_ This sermon was delivered to a massive crowd at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York on the occasion of the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s _Brown v. Board of Education_ ruling against school segregation, at an early moment in this phase of the civil rights movement, with the Montgomery bus boycott still ongoing. To Calloway-Thomas, the sermon is noteworthy for the optimistic vision it presented at such a moment. “He had to help African-American people imagine themselves,” she says. “I think the Death of Evil upon the Seashore is that speech.” It wasn’t the first time King preached on these ideas, and in fact the link he draws between the Biblical exodus and the story of African-American progress toward freedom and equality was an old one, but those present noted that his delivery that day was particularly moving. “He taps into that reservoir, that myth of the Hebrew children in bondage,” Calloway-Thomas says, “and he elevates it and makes it more publicly known.” [_Read the full speech here_](http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document%5Fimages/Vol03Scans/256%5F17-May-1956%5FThe%20Death%20of%20Evil%20upon%20the%20Seashore.pdf) ## Letter from a Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963) _“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”_ Yes, this is a letter, not a speech or sermon — but Calloway-Thomas says it’s worth including on such a list anyway. After all, the circumstances that created this letter are inherently linked to the fact that he _couldn’t_ deliver a speech in person. At the time, King found himself [jailed in Alabama](http://time.com/3773914/mlk-birmingham-jail/) after ignoring an injunction against protests in Birmingham. During that time, a group of clergymen wrote an open letter urging him away from protests. He wanted to respond but, from the jail, his only option if he wanted to answer quickly was to write it down. “Ideas have moments and if those moments aren’t used, you lose that rhetorical moment and it no longer has the force it had,” Calloway-Thomas says. So, in a format she likens to a spoken call and response, he answers the questions that were posed to him about his methods. While also explaining that he’s on strong biblical footing, he provides the public with a way to understand the work he’s doing. His rhetorical skills are also on display as he uses a story about his 6-year-old daughter’s early perceptions of racism and segregation to underline that the matter is not theoretical. In the years since, this letter has become one of 20th century American history’s most famous documents. [_Read the full letter here_](https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles%5FGen/Letter%5FBirmingham.html) ## “I Have a Dream…” (Aug. 28, 1963) _“I have a dream that 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.”_ [The speech](http://time.com/3801522/time-presents-one-dream-the-march-on-washington/) that remains Martin Luther King Jr.’s most famous oration — one of the most famous orations in American history, if not world history — is that well-known for a good reason, Calloway-Thomas says. This was the moment when the world as a whole really _saw_ King, and the moment was carefully orchestrated, framed by the Lincoln Memorial. “Think about how dazzling that was!” she says. “Think about the robust visuals and the lovely words echoing from Dr. King. It was an elixir that was made to circulate.” But, she says, the power of his voice and the impact of the image can sometimes overwhelm the full message of the speech. “Dr. King had some pretty radical statements in that speech,” Calloway-Thomas adds. “Most people gloss over the part in that speech where King says that if we overlook the urgency of now there’ll be a rude awakening. I’ve never seen a student go to that section of the speech; people go right to ‘I have a dream’ and they don’t notice the threat.” [_Read the full speech here_](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj79MXNqZ31AhV1jYkEHeofC9UQFnoECAUQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsdpb.sd.gov%2FEducationalServicesGuide%2Fetvprograms%2Fpdf%2FHistoryofBlackA%2FMartin%2520Luther%2520King%2520Speech.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3DQ5M7smEO-tOWEj7EooYo) ## “A Time to Break Silence” (April 4, 1967) _“We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors.”_ In this speech, King publicly answers his conscience, as Calloway-Thomas puts it, on the matter of the Vietnam War. With an undercurrent of “anguish” about the fact that he feels he must speak, and must criticize the choices of Lyndon Johnson, who had often been an [ally](http://time.com/3658593/selma-lbj-history/), he entered the arena of opposition to the war. “This is an unsettling moment. People paid attention, but that meant there was backlash,” she says. President Johnson and many others felt that he ought to stay focused on domestic civil-rights issues and leave the foreign policy to them, but in this speech he makes clear why those two topics cannot truly be separated. That idea, Calloway-Thomas says, parallels the experience of earlier fighters for justice, such as Frederick Douglass, who got to the world stage with one kind of story — their personal freedom narratives, in that case — and shocked some of their allies when they showed that their thinking was far more expansive. [_Read the full speech here_](http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm) ## “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” (April 3, 1968) _“I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.”_ Start with the date on this one: that’s April 3, 1968, the night before King was assassinated. In this speech, which summons King’s primary background as a preacher, he returns to the story of Moses. Rather than speaking on the joy of the Exodus, though, he turns to the end of Moses’ life, and his death just outside the Promised Land to which he had delivered his people. King casts himself as another leader who may not be there for the end of the journey. “He used Christian values and Democratic traditions to bring people together, so it’s not surprising that he goes to this idea,” Calloway-Thomas says. “What’s significant here is when it occurred. It was almost apocalyptic. Because it occurred at that time it has lingering significance and carries with it an abundance of pathos.” Of course, as Calloway-Thomas says, we can imagine a scenario in which King gave this speech and then lived. The emotional resonance of his words might be lessened without the seemingly prescient layer of fate, but the story would be there all the same. “Here’s a man talking about longevity, here’s a man talking about god’s Will, here’s a man talking about going up to the mountaintop and looking skyward toward heaven and looking over into the Promised Land,” she says. “It’s a gorgeous story.” [_Read the full speech here_](http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/ive%5Fbeen%5Fto%5Fthe%5Fmountaintop/) ## Transcript >> I remember so well the first media that we had with President Kennedy. He didn't like the idea of a March on Washington. He said, in effect, if we bring all these people to Washington, won't there be violence and chaos and disorder, and we will never get a civil rights bill through the Congress. >> The conversation that I had with the White House, with the Justice Department was to say, look, we have a very solid group of citizens here. >> If the whole world-- if your friends were telling you, " You can't do this. There is nothing that you don't take seriously that might more that day ." >> Freedom now movement, hear me. We are requesting all citizens to move into Washington any way that you can get there. We are pushing for jobs, housing, desegregated schools. This is an urgent request. Please join. Go to Washington. >> When the dynamics of the March on Washington began to reveal itself, it became a very threatening concept and no place articulated that fear more precisely than the J. Edgar Hoover who's the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You know, the greatest target for him was Martin King. He was visceral. You just mentioned King's name, he would become epileptic. >> We were not naïve about what the FBI was capable of doing and so we had been told a very good possibility that you're gonna have these people injected into the march to discredit us. We found out after we got there that there was a strong possibility that Dr. King would not gonna speak. We have bomb threats all day everyday. There were also threats of his life with the balance if he showed-- >> So that this struggled with the government was a big force about getting a march organized. >> It was a major task of Bayard Rustin became the deputy for A. Philip Randolph in putting together The March on Washington. >> The March on Washington office was in a dilapidated, but functional building on 130 Street in Harlem. We had nothing by the way of technology. We had lots of volunteers in the office snail mailing things out, but I think the biggest expenditure made was for the sound system and that was because everybody on that will have to hear every minute of every speech. We said, " Okay, what do we need to move this really large group of people from all over ?" We needed public relations. We needed to have a medical core of nurses and doctors on hand, arranged transportation. My job was to make sure that there were buses available and so I had to call and look around for buses that had licenses to do interstate travel that were integrated and then we turned to trains and airplanes. Eventually, we tried to charter everything that was charterable. >> I did acquire a plane in California to DC. So, you have Burt Lancaster, you have Paul Newman, you have Marlon Brando. I understood that I could use the platform of concert, the arts, and put the service of Dr. King's who's going to speak to multitudes of people that he might not unable to attract became part of what I had to do. Plus, raising untotaled sums of money to feed the needs of the movement economically. >> I had just turned 15 and myself and two other guys we were sitting and talking about and then we wanted to go. But of course, we don't have the money. So, one of the guys said, " We'll, let's hitchhike some 700 or so miles ." We were there a week ahead of time so they put us to work and our job was to put together those sands, all those sands that you used to see. >> We were very careful that only authorized signs would be used. We wanted to make sure that all the slogans led to the passage of the civil rights bill and to raise the economic demands, we want jobs, we want a higher minimum wage because everybody was primed for our mistakes. >> The city of Washington almost went crazy. They canceled all elective surgery. They put policemen on 18- hour shifts. They just went our way to prepare for what they thought would be some kind of massive riot, and as we now know, it was the largest demonstration of its kind at that time. >> The Justice Department offered the army, the police, anything he wanted and Bayard said, " No, keep your troops on the periphery of the crowd. We will monitor ourselves ." >> This is freedom to do equality one. >> If you look at those pictures, you'll see people who have plain white hats. Sometimes, there's white hat that says UAW or NAACP, but sometimes they say nothing. When they say nothing, it's a martial. >> I was one of the March martials. I was 21 years old and I have this tremendous responsibility. I think it was about 7 o'clock that morning when we took our stations and then we didn't see anybody and then within the next hour, people start pouring in. >> What we want now-- >> They're coming in cars, trucks, and buses, and bicycles, rollerskates. The chairman up on Capitol Hill meeting with the leaders of the House and Senate and people at the Washington Monument had decided they were ready to go to the Lincoln Memorial. >> We were supposed to be leading the March. We came across Constitution Avenue coming from the Senate side. >> We looked towards Union Station with the sea of humanity and the people were already marching. It was like saying, " There go my people, let me catch up with them and the sea of humanity just literally pushed us, moved us towards the Washington Monument and then to the Lincoln Memorial ." ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5221314/martin-luther-king-jr-speeches/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5221314/martin-luther-king-jr-speeches/"},"headline":"5 Things Written by Martin Luther King Jr. That Everyone Should Read, According to an Expert","datePublished":"2018-04-03T22:30:37.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-12T20:52:16.000Z","description":"A King expert selects the ones to know","url":"https://time.com/5221314/martin-luther-king-jr-speeches/","keywords":["Civil Rights","onetime","The March"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2690651ad8e2ceb/69892c61929fad5293bf021b/mlk.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2690651ad8e2ceb/69892c61929fad5293bf021b/mlk.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Speaking at Microphones","caption":"Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Speaking at Microphones","creditText":"Bettmann/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/civil-rights/","name":"Civil Rights"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5221314/martin-luther-king-jr-speeches/","name":"5 Things Written by Martin Luther King Jr. That Everyone Should Read, According to an Expert"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Highest Stakes","description":"March on Washington organizers were under enormous pressure to plan an event that was orderly and peaceful. 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