August 28, 1963
Let Freedom Ring!
But let justice run down like water, and righteousness
like a mighty stream.
—Amos 5:24
One summer’s day in 1963, my friend Tom Tipton was a young musician working on his mother’s gospel music radio program at the all-black radio station WUST when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. arrived for an interview. “My mom introduced me to Dr. King,” Tom said, “and he invited me to join him and others at the Dunbar Hotel that evening.”
Tom went to the meeting and listened as civil rights leaders planned the March on Washington for August 28 and discussed what Dr. King should say in his speech. Tom told me he didn’t have any input as to the speech, but he was assigned an important duty. He was put in charge of all the portable public toilets along the route.
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“There was something spiritual about the preparation for the march,” Tom said.
I felt calm and assured that with Dr. King as the leader, there would not be any trouble. Also keeping things calm was the participation of so many white churches. It was like the time had come at this specific time for a peaceful march of grievance. Many things could have gone wrong, but they didn’t. If you ask me what the most amazing thing [was] that happened in the March on Washington, I would say that there was peace. . . . We prayed a lot and hugged a lot.¹
As Dr. King began his speech at the Lincoln Memorial, Tom, who was standing four rows back, said he felt disappointed for a moment. “[Dr. King] started out slow. But then as he approached the ‘I have a dream’ segment, the spirit of the Baptist preacher came out. . . . The whole place just vibrated. It hit me and went all the way back to the Washington Monument.”
Four Scriptures
Amos 5:24
Woven into Dr. King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech were four scriptures he knew and loved and often quoted. Midway through, King recited one of his favorite verses, one now inscribed on his own memorial in Washington—Amos 5:24: “But let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Amos was a farmer from the land of Judah. God sent him to the northern kingdom of Israel to preach for social reform, human justice, a respect for the rights of others, and compassion toward the needy. Amos spoke with striking metaphors, and his words have historically been used by civil rights advocates. They were among King’s most quoted words. The righteousness of God needed to become a great river flooding the United States of America and sweeping away injustice, segregation, and prejudice.
Isaiah 40:4–5
Dr. King went on to quote Isaiah 40:4–5: “Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth; the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
Psalm 30:5 & Galatians 3:28
He referred to Psalm 30:5: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” And near the end of his speech he also quoted Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Finally he concluded with the rousing, unforgettable quotation from the old African-American spiritual: “Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, we are free at last.”
A Pastor Rooted in Scripture
As Andy Rau said, “King is remembered primarily as a civil-rights figure who fought for social and political change, but he was also a pastor—and he considered his ideas about civil rights to be firmly rooted not just in common sense or political theory, but in Scripture itself.”²
Dr. King’s speech at the Lincoln Memorial is one of the most powerful speeches in American history, and many of us know at least parts of it by heart. Hearing it in person that day must have been the experience of a lifetime.
Tom Tipton, who went on to become a beloved gospel singer, said in wonderment,
I was a part of it. I brought the chicken—my mother had concessions of fried chicken, potato salad, and bread for $1.50. I drove a bus, I held the babies in the nursery, I helped an elderly woman up off the ground where she had fainted. We became proud! There was no looting or stealing or fights. And it drifted across the nation from the Lincoln Memorial—across the North and the South and into the White House. . . . The world was changed after Dr. King spoke at the Lincoln Memorial.³
Notes:
1James R. Newby, Shining Out and Shining In: Understanding the Life Journey of Tom Tipton
(Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2013), pp. 32–36.
2Andy Rau, 'The Bible Passages Behind Martin Luther King Jr.'s Message,' Bible Gateway
(January 17, 2011).
3Newby, Shining Out and Shining In, pp. 32–36.
This article is an excerpt from 100 Bible Verses That Made America, by Robert J. Morgan.
Had there been no Bible, the nation would not have been born as it was. Perhaps it would not have been born at all. Through the founders, leaders, and defining moments of American history, Scripture helped shape the values and convictions that formed our nation. 100 Bible Verses That Made America by Robert J. Morgan explores the biblical roots behind America’s foundation and reminds us why God’s Word still matters today.