Still Dreaming: A Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. virtual celebration

Montana Public Radio will present a 90-minute radio special, at 8 p.m. Monday, Jan.18, titled “Still Dreaming: A Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebration of the 1963 March on Washington, D.C., for Jobs and Freedom.

For 13 years, Love Lives Here in the Flathead Valley has presented live in-person tributes to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This year will be different. Montana Public Radio’s special will feature a lineup of speakers.

It was Aug. 28, 1963, when 250,000 marchers rallied in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Thousands traveled by road, rail and air to Washington, D.C. More than 2,000 buses, 21 chartered trains, 10-chartered airliners and uncounted cars converged on the Capitol. All regularly scheduled planes, trains and buses were filled to capacity, and yet there were no incidents of civil unrest or violence.

The crowd rallied for 10 hours listening to 10 speakers, including John Lewis, a future Congressman, a series of clergy, and Dr. King and to performances by opera singer Marian Anderson, Mahalia Jackson, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary, and Odetta.

This year’s Martin Luther King celebration will feature selections from the other fiery speeches that day that are rarely mentioned. Several distinguished civil rights activists and leaders will reflect on these speeches and give a progress report on how America is delivering on those promises from 1963.

This radio special was produced by Allen Secher and Bruce Guthrie and will be broadcast on your local MTPR station (90.1 Kalispell; 91.7 Whitefish; 89.5 Polson; 90.5 Libby) or the program can be streamed on mtpr.org