On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have A Dream†speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. This marked an important moment in United States History as a religious leader spearheaded the Civil Rights Movement that would lead to the Civil Rights Act the following year. Ever since the success of Dr. King’s speech, religious conservatives have been trying to capture some of the zeal for their own causes.
Today on From the Vault we found two programs that give us a glimpse of the contrasting roles that religion plays in shaping the political landscape and social movements. We begin with a speech by famed Presbyterian minister and long time peace activist William Sloan Coffin, speaking in 1968 on the destabilizing effect of the United States military buildup on dynamics of world politics, at the New School for Social Research in New York. Then, we explore actuality from a Christian fundamentalist march on Washington on April 29th, 1980 in a Pacifica recording titled Washington for Jesus, produced by Tim Frasca and Adi Gevins, and restored thanks to a grant from the American Archive.
From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project.
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