My wife and I were at a music club last night, listening to two very fun jazz bands. One of the band leaders noted that in 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the Berlin Jazz Festival with a short speech connecting Jazz music to Civil Rights, and the power of the arts and expression. The band leader read a few lines of the speech and I was intrigued, so I found the speech this morning.
Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down. – MLK Jr.
I used a section of the speech for a found poem with a blackout poem platform, for this Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Peace (and poems),
Kevin