King's Speech

The People's Recorder

This month, we're doing something a little different. There are some amazing podcasts out there that give us a view of America through a distinctive lens. One of our favorites is Sidedoor: A podcast from the Smithsonian.

Every episode, host Lizzie Peabody sneaks listeners through Smithsonian's side door to search for stories that can't be found anywhere else.

We're excited to share one of those stories. “King’s Speech” is about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the evolution of his iconic I Have a Dream speech. It’s fascinating to chart the history of his speech and to hear how Dr. King was influenced by poet Langston Hughes, who worked with the Federal Theatre Project in the 1930s and co-wrote a play with one of the writers featured in the People's Recorder, Zora Neale Hurston.

Guests:

Kevin Young, Director of Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture

W. Jason Miller, Author of Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric

Enjoy the episode! To hear more, search for Sidedoor wherever you get your podcasts or go to www.si.edu/sidedoor.

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