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.’
01.14.24
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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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