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"A Dream" | ||||
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Single by Common featuring will.i.am | ||||
from the album Freedom Writers (soundtrack) | ||||
Released | 2006 | |||
Genre | Hip hop | |||
Label | Hollywood Records | |||
Songwriter(s) |
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Producer(s) | will.i.am | |||
Commonsingles chronology | ||||
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will.i.amsingles chronology | ||||
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"A Dream" is a single by rapper Common from the soundtrack to Freedom Writers . It is produced by will.i.am,who also raps the song's chorus. The song heavily samples Martin Luther King Jr.'s historical "I Have a Dream" speech,which relates to the song's lyrics about racism. [1] The single release of "A Dream" includes two will.i.am tracks,"Colors" and "Bus Ride."
The video for the single contains images from the Freedom Writers movie (many of which feature Hilary Swank,its lead actress),mixed with animated series with will.i.am singing on a platform and Common rapping in corridor and bedrooms before stylized images of the Civil Rights Movement. Television footage of the "I Have a Dream" speech is exposed on guide throughout the video. The imagery is destined to increase the song's messages of determination in the face of discrimination,and ambition for a racially equal world.
Chart (2006) | Peak position |
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U.S. Billboard Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles | 16 |
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Christian minister,activist,and political philosopher who was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. A black church leader and a son of early civil rights activist and minister Martin Luther King Sr.,King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination.
Ralph David Abernathy Sr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was ordained in the Baptist tradition in 1948. As a leader of the civil rights movement,he was a close friend and mentor of Martin Luther King Jr. He collaborated with King and E. D. Nixon to create the Montgomery Improvement Association,which led to the Montgomery bus boycott and co-created and was an executive board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He became president of the SCLC following the assassination of King in 1968;he led the Poor People's Campaign in Washington,D.C.,as well as other marches and demonstrations for disenfranchised Americans. He also served as an advisory committee member of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE).
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,also known as simply the March on Washington or the Great March on Washington,was held in Washington,D.C.,on August 28,1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. At the march,final speaker Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial,delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech in which he called for an end to racism and racial segregation.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta,Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president,Martin Luther King Jr.,who had a large role in the American civil rights movement.
Our Friend,Martin is a 1999 American direct-to-video animated children's educational film about Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. It was produced by DIC Entertainment,L.P. and Intellectual Properties Worldwide,and distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment under the CBS/Fox Video label. The film follows two friends in middle school who travel through time,meeting Dr. King at several points during his life. It featured an all-star voice cast and was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1999 for "Outstanding Animated Program ". It was also the final release under the CBS/Fox Video name before it was retired. It was released three days before Martin Luther King Jr.'s 70th birthday.
The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was formed on December 5,1955 by black ministers and community leaders in Montgomery,Alabama. Under the leadership of Ralph Abernathy,Martin Luther King Jr. and Edgar Nixon,the MIA was instrumental in guiding the Montgomery bus boycott,a successful campaign that focused national attention on racial segregation in the South and catapulted King into the national spotlight.
The Martin Luther King,Jr. Memorial is a national memorial located in West Potomac Park next to the National Mall in Washington,D.C.,United States. It covers four acres (1.6 ha) and includes the Stone of Hope,a granite statue of Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King Jr. carved by sculptor Lei Yixin. The inspiration for the memorial design is a line from King's "I Have a Dream" speech:"Out of the mountain of despair,a stone of hope." The memorial opened to the public on August 22,2011,after more than two decades of planning,fund-raising,and construction.
James Luther Bevel was an American minister and leader of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in the United States. As a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC),and then as its Director of Direct Action and Nonviolent Education,Bevel initiated,strategized,and developed SCLC's three major successes of the era:the 1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade,the 1965 Selma voting rights movement,and the 1966 Chicago open housing movement. He suggested that SCLC call for and join a March on Washington in 1963. Bevel strategized the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches,which contributed to Congressional passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Clayborne Carson is an American academic who is a professor of history at Stanford University and director of the Martin Luther King,Jr.,Research and Education Institute. Since 1985,he has directed the Martin Luther King Papers Project,a long-term project to edit and publish the papers of Martin Luther King Jr.
No Name in the Street is American writer and poet James Baldwin's fourth non-fiction book,first published in 1972. Baldwin describes his views on several historical events and figures:Francisco Franco,McCarthyism,the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.,Malcolm X,Huey Newton,Bobby Seale,Eldridge Cleaver,and the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The book also covers the Algerian War and Albert Camus' take on it.
The Freedom Singers originated as a quartet formed in 1962 at Albany State College in Albany,Georgia. After folk singer Pete Seeger witnessed the power of their congregational-style of singing,which fused black Baptist a cappella church singing with popular music at the time,as well as protest songs and chants. Churches were considered to be safe spaces,acting as a shelter from the racism of the outside world. As a result,churches paved the way for the creation of the freedom song. After witnessing the influence of freedom songs,Seeger suggested The Freedom Singers as a touring group to the SNCC executive secretary James Forman as a way to fuel future campaigns. Intrinsically connected,their performances drew aid and support to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the emerging civil rights movement. As a result,communal song became essential to empowering and educating audiences about civil rights issues and a powerful social weapon of influence in the fight against Jim Crow segregation. Rutha Mae Harris,a former freedom singer,speculated that without the music force of broad communal singing,the civil rights movement may not have resonated beyond of the struggles of the Jim Crow South. Their most notable song “We Shall Not Be Moved”translated from the original Freedom Singers to the second generation of Freedom Singers,and finally to the Freedom Voices,made up of field secretaries from SNCC. "We Shall Not Be Moved" is considered by many to be the "face" of the Civil Rights movement. Rutha Mae Harris,a former freedom singer,speculated that without the music force of broad communal singing,the civil rights movement may not have resonated beyond of the struggles of the Jim Crow South. Since the Freedom Singers were so successful,a second group was created called the Freedom Voices.
"I Have a Dream" is a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist and Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28,1963. In the speech,King called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington,D.C.,the speech was one of the most famous moments of the civil rights movement and among the most iconic speeches in American history.
The Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom,or Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington,was a 1957 demonstration in Washington,D.C.,an early event in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. It was the occasion for Martin Luther King Jr.'s Give Us the Ballot speech.
The Freedom Rides Museum is located at 210 South Court Street in Montgomery,Alabama,in the building which was until 1995 the Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station. It was the site of a violent attack on participants in the 1961 Freedom Ride during the Civil Rights Movement. The May 1961 assaults,carried out by a mob of white protesters who confronted the civil rights activists,"shocked the nation and led the Kennedy Administration to side with civil rights protesters for the first time."
Robert Melvin "Bob" Adelman was an American photographer known for his images of the civil rights movement.
"By the Time I Get to Arizona" is a song by American hip hop group Public Enemy from their 1991 album Apocalypse 91... The Enemy Strikes Black. The song was written by frontman Chuck D in protest of the state of Arizona,where governor Evan Mecham had canceled Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the people voted against its reintroduction.
The Walk to Freedom was a mass march during the Civil Rights Movement on June 23,1963 in Detroit,Michigan. It drew crowds of an estimated 125,000 or more and was known as "the largest civil rights demonstration in the nation's history" up to that date.
The history of the 1954 to 1968 American civil rights movement has been depicted and documented in film,song,theater,television,and the visual arts. These presentations add to and maintain cultural awareness and understanding of the goals,tactics,and accomplishments of the people who organized and participated in this nonviolent movement.
There are two statues of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Newark,New Jersey. Both are located on the Essex County Government Complex at its newest addition,the Martin Luther King Justice Building.