Everybody's Got a Story: Original ‘I Have a Speech' lives inside Peoria Riverfront Musuem
PEORIA, Ill (WMBD) — It's an original document that's priceless. The Peoria Riverfront Musuem is now home to Martin Luther King Jr's 'I Have a Dream Speech'.
'I felt like a kid on Christmas morning being able to be in the same room space with a document like this,' Assistant Curator & Community Engagement of the museum Everley Davis said.
'It's a touchstone in American History. It is a moment in modern America that human rights, civil rights begin to pivot into the area that we are in now,' Chief Curator of the museum Bill Conger said.
During this year's MLK Luncheon, the museum revealed a surprise it was sitting on for a while: they got their hands on MLK's 'I Have a Dream Speech'.
'Being able to unveil to the community was the icing on the cake for me,' Davis said.
The document is now displayed at the museum. It's the building block of their next big project.
'From Jan. 26 to 27, the entire museum will be transformed into a series of exhibitions that celebrate America's history,' Conger said. 'The main exhibition will be focused on wraps around some of the country's most prominent documents.'
'It's really showing the big steps the museum is taking to bring national stories to the Midwest,' Davis said.
What's fascinating about the original speech is nowhere on it does MLK actually call it the 'I Have a Dream Speech'. When he spoke in Washington, the speech was only supposed to be four minutes. It ended up being 16 minutes, the phrase 'I Have a Dream' was raw emotion.
'The first thing I noticed were the filled in like the circles for different letters, like frozen peas and what not,' Davis said. 'But that was just me not generationally familiar with the Vimeo graph. Seeing the withering of the on the paper was a unique experience.'
Now this historic document inside the walls of the museum is a powerful reminder of everything MLK stood for.
'His legacy to me, it will never die. It is shaped not just what black protest or gathering looks like. It is what American protests and really stepping up and speaking out for yourself looks like,' Davis said.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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