John Lewis's “serious revolution”: Rhetoric, resistance, and revision at the march on Washington

Abstract

In American memory, the March on Washington is the high‐water mark of the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King Jr. ‘s “I Have a Dream” oration is so central to the memory of the March that it has obscured the speeches by other civil rights activists‐including John Lewis. Lewis's prepared speech was militant, and March organizers pressured him to revise it. Inquiry into Lewis's speech and the surrounding controversy permits the recovery of what Lewis actually said—which has not been published—and reveals a synecdochic struggle over the rhetoric of the civil rights movement and what was sayable in public on August 28, 1963.

Key words:

• John Lewis
• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
• March on Washington
• civil rights
• public memory