On this day in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. gave what is widely hailed as the best political speech of the twentieth century. King famously departed from his prepared text to expound upon his dream, a vision of a nation living in racial harmony. Folk history has it that Mahalia
A recent unexpected celebrity endorsement is just the latest in a string of successes for Yale’s Icons of America series, which presents brief, lively volumes on our nation’s major cultural touchstones. Past works have covered the Empire State Building, Gone with the Wind, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have
Forty-four years ago this week, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law, marking a monumentous moment in civil rights history. Yesterday’s confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor fell on the anniversary of the law’s passage, lending even greater historical resonance to a moment that President Obama celebrated as