If anyone warrants a footnote in history, it’s Mahalia Jackson. If anyone deserves a modicum of recognition for what transpired before 250,000 people crammed at the foot of Washington’s Lincoln Memorial on a sweltering afternoon 50 years ago, it’s surely Mahalia Jackson.
Yet her story remains unsung, her involvement in one of the greatest speeches of all time unheralded.
Jackson was a gospel singer blessed with a contralto voice, album sales in the millions. Yet she was more than that – an activist who lent her formidable presence to the awakening civil rights movement and was described as ”the most powerful black woman in the US”.
It is a shame but I believe the speech has fallen off most people’s radar because the family enforces a copyright on it.