Origins of the Dream

Since Martin Luther King Jr.s I Have a Dream speech, some scholars have privately suspected that Kings dream was connected to Langston Hughess poetry. Drawing on archival materials, including notes, correspondence, and marginalia, W. Jason Miller provides a completely original and compelling argument that Hughess influence on Kings rhetoric was, in fact, evident in more than just the one famous speech. Kings staff had been wiretapped by J. Edgar Hoover and suffered accusations of communist influence, so quoting or naming the leader of the Harlem Renaissancewho had his own reputation as a communistwould only have intensified the threats against the civil rights activist. Thus, the link was purposefully veiled through careful allusions in Kings orations. In Origins of the Dream, Miller lifts that veil and shows how Hughess revolutionary poetry became a measurable inflection in Kings voice. He contends that by employing Hughess metaphors in his speeches, King negotiated a political climate that sought to silence the poets subversive voice. By separating Hughess identity from his poems, King helped the nation unconsciously embrace the incendiary ideas behind his poetry.