I helped write MLK's 'I Have a Dream' speech. Its message remains essential 60 years later.

A recent study by the Pew Research Center suggests that the content of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s seismic “I Have a Dream” speech is fading in Americans’ collective memory. If true, that is a failure of public education that would be tantamount to the eradication of discussions of the Holocaust in World War II history classes – that is to say, unimaginably misguided.

Without the context of the March on Washington, which celebrates its 60th anniversary on Aug. 28, and Dr. King’s words, America has little hope of recovering from the backslide into tribalism, racism and antisemitism it has been wallowing in between the presidential elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

At the age of 92, I have made it the goal of my remaining life to ensure that Dr. King’s words are immortalized and studied by the citizens of our democracy. In fact, I’ve already done much to keep that flame lit.

Sixty years ago, I was a 32-year-old lawyer acting as a political adviser, personal lawyer and draft speechwriter for Dr. King. Early on the day of the march, I made my way to the March Committee’s “news headquarters,” a gigantic tent near the Lincoln Memorial we had put up to make sure reporters received all the information they needed about the day. There, Martin’s speech had been mimeographed, stapled and inserted in large envelopes comprising the press kits for the journalists.

I picked up one of the copies of Martin’s speech lying in a pile on a table. I realized that they did not contain a notice of copyright protection.

Acting on behalf of Martin Luther King Jr.

News coverage for the march was more extensive than for any previous political demonstration in U.S. history. We had issued no fewer than 1,655 special press passes.

Forget for a moment the newspapers that would be running at least parts of the speech, the mere distribution of the work to this many members of the press could potentially be deemed to constitute a “publication” under U.S. copyright law, thereby extinguishing Martin’s protection.

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Traditionally, how it worked in the public-speaking-and-press game was that an individual making a speech, if they even understood the value of intellectual property at all, traded that value away on the assumption that the news coverage would be of greater value than potential copyright profits.

In legal reality, however, it was not an either/or proposition. Preempting the newspapers’ first publication rights didn’t mean that a newspaper could not run the speech. It only meant that the rights were still retained. All it would take was a focused effort.

It was from this viewpoint I decided to act on Martin’s behalf.

Accordingly, I introduced myself to the people assembling and distributing the press kits and told them exactly what I wanted: Retrieve the copies of the speech from the press kits and handwrite a symbol of a small circle with a “c” inside on each page of each copy. The sheer determination in my face got through to them, and my raised voice alerted others with a little more authority who were on the other side of the tent. Someone came over and recognized me. He mentioned to the people I was arguing with that I was “Dr. King’s New York lawyer.”

That changed everything. My request suddenly didn’t seem so intrusive, and my instructions were followed. Several young volunteers used ballpoint pens at my direction to render a hand-written version of the appropriate copyright notice.

I did my share of the work as well. As I flipped through page after page of the mimeographed speeches, it was as if I was on autopilot.

I truly neither want nor take any real credit for the value of the intellectual property the copyright provided. I’d be lying to myself if I claimed that kind of foresight. But I had the sense that the march on that August day would have a reverberating impact, and that Martin’s speech would be a tangible byproduct.

I gave no further thought to the speech that morning. The next time I saw a copy of it, it would be on the lectern in front of Martin Luther King Jr.

Little did I realize the value of that copyright would amount to millions of dollars over the years for the King estate. I didn’t yet know this was “I Have a Dream.”

'The most tragic problem is silence'

Perhaps I should’ve given the same copyright treatment to our friend Rabbi Joachim Prinz, who spoke immediately before Dr. King. His remarks are nearly lost to history already. He had been a rabbi in Berlin under Hitler and remembered many things about Nazi Germany. But what he most remembered from Germany at the March on Washington were the mute witnesses.

He told the crowd that "the most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence."

If "I Have a Dream" is fading from memory, what hope do we have of holding on to Rabbi Prinz’s powerful testimony?

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When I attend the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, it will be as the chairman of the board of the Spill the Honey Foundation, an organization devoted to celebrating and reigniting the alliance between the Black community under Dr. King’s leadership and leaders of the Jewish community.

It was this alliance that enabled America to transform and redeem its soul, making it politically possible for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I believe restoration of the Black-Jewish alliance in our major urban communities today is essential to ending the blood-soaked killing fields from nonstop gun violence, and I believe the words of Dr. King and Rabbi Prinz should be as enshrined in our patriotic consciousness as “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

These should be the most important takeaways from the 60th anniversary commemoration of the March on Washington.

Clarence B. Jones was personal attorney, adviser and speech writer for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Jones is credited as a co-author of King's 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech. His new memoir, written with Stuart Connelly, is "The Last of The Lions."