Mastodawn

https://www.readtpa.com/p/mlk-i-have-a-dream-speech-edit

Additionally...

Here's what that paper ran on the day of King's speech...

Newspaper Prints Heavily-Edited, Sanitized Version of MLK's "I Have a Dream" Speech, Apologizes

And you wonder why so many people believe the speech's key takeaway is that we should all just judge people by "the content of their character," rather than address the specific concerns laid out.

The Present Age

https://www.readtpa.com/p/mlk-i-have-a-dream-speech-edit

And finally, this is something the paper has published before. I found a link to a 2020 article that was word-for-word the same, right down to the "we should take a step away from our divisive politics" line, with the only difference being that it said "As we mark the "91st birthday" instead of "94th birthday."

Newspaper Prints Heavily-Edited, Sanitized Version of MLK's "I Have a Dream" Speech, Apologizes

And you wonder why so many people believe the speech's key takeaway is that we should all just judge people by "the content of their character," rather than address the specific concerns laid out.

The Present Age

North Easton

Jan 16, 2023

@parkermolloy Huh. It's like an Onion article. Same stuff, different day.

@parkermolloy Sounds like they just pull it out of their files every year and run it without thinking about it. What will really be interesting is to see what they do next year now that they've been called out.

@parkermolloy From Wikipedia: The Bangor Daily News "has been owned by the Towle-Warren family for four generations; current publisher Richard J. Warren is the great-grandson of J. Norman Towle, who bought the paper in 1895. Since 2018, it has been the only independently owned daily newspaper in the state."

Depends on your definition of "independent." The rest, anchored by the Portland Press Herald, are owned by Reade Brower, a Maine printer, not by an out-of-state chain.

@dankennedy_nu Yeah. I was thinking about how the hollowing out of newspaper staffs and whatnot might lead to a world where papers lean into templates for holidays and other annual type/repeating events.

@parkermolloy The Maine papers are in pretty good shape. This is just old-school laziness, not a symptom of the local news crisis.

@dankennedy_nu I think I'm going to set a reminder for myself to see what they do next year, mostly just out of curiosity.

Joe Beehammer (🐝 🔨)Jan 17, 2023

@parkermolloy "step away from divisiveness and unify with the racists!"
Sure, jan

MB Jan 17, 2023

@parkermolloy I live in Maine, but I don’t have a subscription to them. Someone else did say in comments last night that they did it the last 3 years in a row. Over on twitter.

@parkermolloy Holy cow. That paper’s still around and is pretty good.

@dankennedy_nu Right? There's another update in the link I posted at the very bottom which also kind of blew my mind: apparently, the edited version of the IHAD speech is something they've printed before, with the exact same "step away from our divisive politics" boilerplate.

Matthew Nadler Jan 16, 2023

@parkermolloy @dankennedy_nu I bet they publish "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" every Christmas Eve.

Confiscated Pillow Phone Jan 16, 2023

@parkermolloy This must be that "broad body of work" that Susan Young was referring to.

Rebecca Jan 16, 2023

@parkermolloy This is unfortunately familiar...

Rob Burke Jan 16, 2023

@parkermolloy. Thank your for sharing. The loaded framing by the author is blinding.

John McQuaid Jan 16, 2023

@parkermolloy Some remarkable reasoning – "of course we all already know that Black people do not fully enjoy civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution; why can't they just fix that through normal channels like normal people?"

Joe Beehammer (🐝 🔨)Jan 17, 2023

@parkermolloy this just reeks of "this is antifa!!!"

GlennMG Jan 17, 2023

@parkermolloy The Bangor "Privileged Daily Whine". "Why can't "They" be more like us?" Lord, where to start?

Mats Persson Jan 17, 2023

@parkermolloy it reminds of the cover of the demonstrations in Lutzerath, Germany.

Cyber Yuki Jan 16, 2023

@parkermolloy

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Holy shit 🤯 MLK was based AF.

BassballPlayer Jan 16, 2023

@parkermolloy They left out the parts I most clearly remember from the speech. The “cashing the check” and the “let freedom ring” sections are the meat of it, IMO.

Cromley Jan 16, 2023

@parkermolloy Thank you for calling this out. Gotta be a challenge to keep up journalism's "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" credo while serving a 94% white Maine populace amid declining revenues

BassballPlayer Jan 16, 2023

@parkermolloy
BTW, I’m old enough to remember actually seeing it on TV. Not sure whether it was live or on the evening news, but I can say the speech has been in my personal memory since I was 9 years old. My dad was a relatively progressive white pastor in rural North Carolina who (somewhat quietly) revered MLK.