Did you know, that before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his historic speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, he gave part of that speech to a crowded high school gym in Rocky Mount, NC? According to the newspaper article, there were 1800 people gathered at the Booker T. Washington High School to hear Dr. King on the night in 1962. In the link below to the Our State Magazine article, written by Jeremy Markovich, you will find a picture from that night and some excerpts from that speech.
During some research on King in 2013 by W. Jason Miller, a North Carolina State University English professor, he was lead to contacting a librarian at Braswell Memorial Library who informed him that they had a copy of the transcript from that night, copies of the newspaper article as well as an audio tape. In February 2018, in that same gym from 1962, people gathered to hear the audio tape from 1962 and to listen to the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I was not present that night, however, a gentleman that I had worked with in 2018, did go and recalled going that night in 1962 as well.
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