Martin Luther King Jr. waves to the group throughout the “March on Washington” in 1963.

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Martin Luther King Jr. waves to the group throughout the “March on Washington” in 1963.

AFP by way of Getty Images

Monday marks 60 years since Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his well-known “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

To replicate on what that message means immediately, All Things Considered’s Scott Detrow spoke with one of many males who helped King write it: Clarence B. Jones.

Jones was King’s private lawyer, adviser and speechwriter. He was 32 years previous in 1963 when he helped King draft the long-lasting speech, and now, at 92, has not too long ago printed a memoir known as Last Of The Lions.

Jones discusses his life’s work, what he remembers about that pivotal day in American historical past, and racial relations within the United States immediately.

Clarence B. Jones in 2021.

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Kimberly White/Getty Images

Clarence B. Jones in 2021.

Kimberly White/Getty Images

This interview has been evenly edited for size and readability.

Scott Detrow: Can you inform us what the method was like main as much as that day: What you and Dr. King talked about if you talked about what he needed to say within the Mall; that course of, the 2 of you engaged on the speech within the Willard Hotel and considering via what he needed to…

Clarence Jones: No, it wasn’t like that.

Detrow: No? What was it like?

Jones: What it was like is that Dr. King and his spouse, Coretta, had a set on the Willard Hotel. He was exasperated. I knew from working with him that his … problem was at all times how you can start a speech. Just how do you begin it, how you can start it. So I had sat down the evening earlier than, just like the day earlier than, and I had wrote out on yellow sheets of paper a textual content of how he may open a speech. It was given to him as a reference, not for him to make use of, however [more like] “This is the text of something you might want to consider as you’re considering your speech.” Now, I’m listening to the speech, and lo and behold, I’m listening to it and the very first thing I say after I hear it, I say to myself, “Oh my God. He must have really been tired.” And I say, “Oh my God, he’s using what I had written.”

Detrow: Did you, and did he, and everybody you have been with, know in that second, that is one thing that stood out? Of all of the speeches, of all of the issues Dr. King has accomplished, this stands out, that is going to depart a mark, that is going to be memorable? Did that within the second?

Jones: I did. I truly did. The purpose I did was that I used to be standing behind him. And I had seen Dr. King communicate numerous instances. And I’ve seen different preachers communicate numerous instances. Now, if you see, significantly a Black preacher out of the Baptist church … begin take his foot and begin going behind his left ankle and shifting his proper foot from his left ankle as much as the underside of his left knee — if you see a Black Baptist preacher began rubbing his toes up and down slowly and also you see him do this whereas he is preaching, you translate that the music — that is like watching Charlie Parker or Dizzy Gillespie — that is if you say, “The brother is going to take it away.”

When I noticed him do this, I leaned over to any person — fairly frankly, I do not know, in all these 60 years, I do not know the gender of the particular person, I do not know the race of the particular person — however I stated to the particular person, “These people out there don’t know it, but they’re about ready to go to church.” Because I knew, like the nice musician, that Dr. King was going to knock it out of the ballpark.

Detrow: Here we’re 60 years later. Do you are feeling like, within the grand scheme of issues, America has gone ahead, has gone backwards? What do you make of the second we’re in proper now in 2023 in the case of racial relations within the United States?

Jones: Oh, I feel it is indeniable that we have made extraordinary strides. I’ll use 1863 as my benchmark. Slavery, OK? I imply, you’d need to be simply not understanding probably the most elementary info of historical past to not know that the transition from the establishment of slavery to non-slavery was profound, OK?

So, progress is never a straight line, significantly in social actions, . The line is zig zag. Sometimes one step ahead, two steps backward, two steps ahead, one step backward. The arc of the universe is lengthy, to paraphrase Martin, but it surely bends in direction of justice. It’s a bit Pollyannic to assume that the progress of the difficulty of race goes to be one straight line, all proper? You measure the progress incrementally.

Detrow: You’ve returned to the location many instances earlier than.

Jones: Yeah.

Detrow: It’s now the sixtieth anniversary. Quite a lot of your contemporaries are now not with us. Do you are feeling an additional duty? What do you are feeling when there’s fewer of you to assemble, however you are still right here, you are still experiencing this second?

Jones: You know how you can make me cry, proper? You know what I really feel?

Detrow: What’s that?

Jones: I really feel that I’m the beneficiary of a number of the finest drugs on this planet. That’s the explanation — I’m going to be 93 — however I’ve an obligation. As lengthy as I’ve any breath in my physique, I’ve an obligation to hold on the work of Fannie Lou Hamer, Harry Belafonte, all of these individuals, like Fred Shuttlesworth, and the legacy of these 4 stunning women that have been murdered on September 15. I imply, what is the sense of being gifted with a certain quantity of longevity if I need to sit on my butt and do nothing, OK? I’m not about sitting on my behind after I know the legacy of all that is gone earlier than. I can not do this. And so I need to go away each breath in my physique and I need to say to Martin, Harry, Fannie Lou Hamer: “I carried on for you as best as I could. And I’m going to do that until the day I die.”