MLK’s Former Speechwriter: ‘We Are Trying to Save the Soul of America’
Clarence B. Jones sits for a portrait at his home in Palo Alto, California, on January 3, 2024. (Photo by Marlena Sloss for The Free Press)
‘I Have a Dream’ coauthor Clarence Jones on color blindness, Ibram X. Kendi, black-Jewish relations, and why MLK ‘wouldn’t permit what’s going on.’
In the 1960s, when Clarence Jones was writing speeches for Martin Luther King Jr., he used to joke with the civil rights leader: “You don’t deserve me, man.”
“Why?” King would ask.
“I hear your voice in my head. I hear your voice in perfect pitch,” Jones would respond. “So when I write, I can write words that accurately reflect the way you actually spea…
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