King's Speech

02/09/22 • 35 min

4 Listeners

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream Speech is one of the most famous speeches in the world. But it almost didn’t happen. If you look at King's typed manuscript of his speech —which is currently on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture— you won't find the phrase "I Have a Dream." But even though Dr. King's speech was improvised, that doesn't mean it wasn't years in the making. In this episode of Sidedoor, we trace the evolution of King's dream, from a secret friendship, to an experimental poem, to the speech we all know today.

Guests:

Kevin Young, Director of Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture

W. Jason Miller, Author of Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric

Guests:

Kevin Young, Director of Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture

W. Jason Miller, Author of Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric

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The Robot in the Mirror

It’s easy to think artificial intelligence is objective. It doesn’t have emotions. It operates based on cold hard calculations. But artificial intelligence is built on human intelligence, and it may be carrying our old prejudices into the future with us. In this episode of Sidedoor, we step into the Smithsonian’s FUTURES exhibition to meet a very special robot who asks us to consider: whose image will be reflected in our AI future?

Speakers:

Stephanie Dinkins, transdisciplinary artist and professor at Stony Brook University

Twitter: @dinkinsstudio @stephdink

Instagram: Dinkins.studio, stephanie.dinkins

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.stephaniedinkins.com

Ashley Molese, a curator of the Smithsonian’s FUTURES exhibition

Social media: @smithsonianAIB, #TheFUTURES

Next Episode

Raven and the Box of Daylight

2 Recommendations

Before here was here Raven was a white bird, and the world was in darkness. So begins the story passed down among the Tlingit people of the Pacific Northwest since time immemorial. This origin story has survived by passing from the lips of one person to the ear of another – from generation to generation. In this episode of Sidedoor, Tlingit glass artist Preston Singletary shares it in a new way: leading us on a journey from darkness to light through dozens of luminous glass sculptures.

Speakers

Miranda Belarde-Lewis, independent curator and assistant professor of Information Science at the University of Washington

IG: miranda505

Preston Singletary, internationally acclaimed Tlingit glass artist

IG: @prestonsingletaryglass

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/PrestonSingletaryGlass

Emil Her Many Horses, curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian

IG: @SmithsonianNMAI | Twitter: @SmithsonianNMAI