大象传媒

Good morning.

50 year's ago tomorrow, a small tv was brought into the Oval Office so the President could watch the live broadcast of a speech. Martin Luther King was addressing a crowd of more that 200,000 protesters stretched out along Washington's Mall. 'He's good' Kennedy told an aide - apparently he was referring, so the aide thought, more to the manner of the delivery, than to the message itself.

It was - and is - a powerful speech. Martin Luther King was, of course, a preacherand his speech had the cadences of the great translations of the Bible. It flowed along with all the sonorous majesty of the words of the Old Testament prophets - indeed King quoted one of the very best known passages from the book of Isaiah: his dream was 'that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.'

Kennedy was right - it's good stuff. But there is more to it than great style or technique - in fact we might say that the majestic delivery could only borrow the style of the great prophets just because, like them, he was delivering a sublime message. Listen to Martin Luther King again, and you will be struck, I think, by the immense authority with which he spoke, even though there is nothing grand or imposing in his manner or tone. He doesn't hector. He doesn't rant. He doesn't implore. And he doesn't even try to persuade. Rather, like those Old Testament prophets, he simply announces the demands which justice makes upon us - the demand specifically in August 1963 in the US, that equality before the law should be a reality for all, regardless of race and colour...

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