[Every now and then, a voice can matter. Mahalia Jackson had one
of them.]
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GOSPEL SINGER MAHALIA JACKSON MADE A SUGGESTION DURING THE 1963 MARCH
ON WASHINGTON − AND IT CHANGED A GOOD SPEECH TO A MAJESTIC SERMON ON
AN AMERICAN DREAM  
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Bev-Freda Jackson
August 25, 2023
The Conversation
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_ Every now and then, a voice can matter. Mahalia Jackson had one of
them. _

Martin Luther King Jr. (bottom right) listens to gospel singer
Mahalia Jackson during the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963., Bob
Parent/Getty Images

 

Every now and then, a voice can matter. Mahalia Jackson
[[link removed]] had one of them.

Known around the world as the “Queen of Gospel
[[link removed]],” Jackson
used her powerful voice
[[link removed]] to
work in the Civil Rights Movement
[[link removed]].
Starting in the 1950s, she traveled with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
throughout the South and heard him preach in Black churches about a
vision that only he could see.

But on Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, something
didn’t quite sound right to Jackson as she listened to King deliver
his prepared speech. King was reading from his prepared remarks when
she made a simple suggestion
[[link removed]].

“Tell them about the dream, Martin,” she urged King
[[link removed]],
“tell them about the dream.”

Inspired, King cast aside his prepared remarks and ad-libbed from his
heart. For the estimated 250,000 who joined the March on Washington
for Jobs and Freedom
[[link removed]] that day, they
heard King deliver one of his seminal sermons
[[link removed]].

“I have a dream,” King preached, “that one day this nation will
rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

Though most memorable, King’s voice wasn’t the only one that day
60 years ago. The other voice, the one King listened to and heeded,
belonged to Mahalia Jackson.

“A voice like hers comes along once in a millennium,” King once
said
[[link removed]].

An international phenomenon

Born on Oct. 26, 1911, in New Orleans
[[link removed]],
Jackson had a contralto voice that first won fame as a gospel singer
in the choir at Greater Salem Baptist Church on Chicago’s South Side
during the 1940s.

Among her earliest hit recordings were “I Can Put My Trust in Jesus
[[link removed]],” “In the Upper Room
[[link removed]],” “He’s Got the
Whole World in His Hands
[[link removed]],” “Move On Up A
Little Higher [[link removed]]” and
“Even Me Lord [[link removed]].”

[A Black woman dressed in a white gown gestures with her hands as she
sings behind several microphones.]

Mahalia Jackson performing in Copenhagen, Denmark, in April 1961.
Lennart Steen/JP Jazz Archive/Getty Images
[[link removed]]

Before long, Jackson was appearing in major concert venues in the U.S.
and Europe. In 1956, she was the first gospel singer to perform at
Carnegie Hall
[[link removed]]. In
1961, Jackson sang at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy
[[link removed]].
The popular “Ed Sullivan Show” made Jackson a household name
[[link removed]] by frequently
asking her to perform.

But international fame did not make Jackson forget her religious
upbringing and commitment to fight for equal rights.

In “As the Spirit Moves Mahalia
[[link removed]],” prominent
Black writer Ralph Ellison wrote about the meaning of Jackson’s
voice.

“The true function of her singing is not simply to entertain,” he
explained, “but to prepare the congregation for the minister’s
message, to make it receptive to the spirit, and with effects of voice
and rhythm to evoke a shared community of experience.”

Ellison further wrote
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that Jackson was “not primarily a concert singer but a high
priestess in the religious ceremony of her church.”

Mahalia and Martin

Jackson and King first met
[[link removed].]
at the National Baptist Convention in Alabama in 1956. King asked her
if she could support his work there by singing and inspiring civil
rights activists during the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott
[[link removed]].

From there, she became the first woman to serve on the board of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
[[link removed]],
a prominent civil rights group led by King, and became one of King’s
most trusted advisers. In a 1962 press release
[[link removed]], King
wrote that Jackson
[[link removed]] “has appeared
on numerous programs that helped the struggle in the South, but now
she has indicated that she wants to be involved on a regular basis.”

She shared his vision for breaking down the barriers of segregation
and fighting for equitable treatment for African Americans. In her own
right, Jackson became a visible fixture within the Civil Rights
Movement.

Jackson died in 1972
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at the age of 60.

Jackson’s voice in a movement

If music was the soul of the movement, strategic thinking was at its
core. As psychologist Asa Hilliard
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later explained, among those strategies were moral suasion,
litigation, grassroots organizing, civil disobedience, economic
boycotts, the solicitation of corporate sponsors and the use of
television.

The March on Washington
[[link removed]] was considered
the culminating event of the historic Civil Rights Movement. The march
was rooted in the ideal of economic justice and intentionally held on
Aug. 28 to commemorate the lynching of Emmett Till
[[link removed]]
in Mississippi on the same date in 1955.

Till’s death and the subsequent acquittal of three white men charged
with the brutal murder was one of the turning points
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of the movement.

Among the building blocks of the Civil Rights Movement was music. It
spoke to the soul, and Mahalia’s gift comforted the masses. King
often called her during trying times and asked her to sing
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to him over the telephone.

[A Black woman wearing a black hat stands in front of an American
flag.]

Mahalia Jackson greets others during the March on Washington for Jobs
and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963. Roosevelt H. Carter/Getty Images
[[link removed]]

King called [[link removed]] her
“a blessing to me … and a blessing to Negroes who have learned
through her not to be ashamed of their heritage.”

It was no surprise then that Jackson felt comfortable enough to make a
suggestion to the civil rights leader during a sermon.

Before he appeared on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Jackson had
sung her rendition of “I have been buked and I have been scorned
[[link removed]]” and after he
finished, she sang “We Shall Overcome
[[link removed]].”

But her most important line that day
[[link removed]]
might have been, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.”[The
Conversation]

Bev-Freda Jackson
[[link removed]],
Adjunct professor of Justice, Law and Criminology, _American
University School of Public Affairs
[[link removed]]_

This article is republished from The Conversation
[[link removed]] under a Creative Commons license. Read
the original article
[[link removed]].

* 1963 march on washington
[[link removed]]
* Martin Luther King Jr.
[[link removed]]
* Mahalia Jackson
[[link removed]]
* Black History
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* civil rights movement
[[link removed]]
* Montgomery bus boycott
[[link removed]]

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