Carnegie Hall

PART 1: Spirituals as the Expression of Hopes and Dreams

Have students answer the following questions:

• What are some of the hopes and dreams expressed in Spirituals?
• How can Spirituals be meaningful in today’s world? How do they unify us?
• If there is one thing you could change for your family or community, what would it be?
• What are some dreams you have for yourself?
• What are some dreams you have for your country? For the world?

Use the stories of Dred Scott, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks to demonstrate how Black Americans fought for their hopes and dreams:

• Dred Scott was an enslaved Black American man who sued for his own freedom and the freedom of his family in a famous court cased called Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857.
• Harriet Tubman was a formerly enslaved woman who helped free hundreds of slaves on a dangerous route from the south to the north called the Underground Railroad.
• Rosa Parks was a Civil Rights activist, who protested the treatment of blacks in the South, by refusing to move to the back of the bus when she was asked to. Her protest led to citywide collective action in Montgomery, Alabama, and she became an emblem of resistance and strength for the Civil Rights movement.
• As a class, discuss these questions in relation to the worksheet:
  • What hopes and dreams do we have in common as a class?
  • What aspirations do we have as individuals?
  • How many of those aspirations have become realities?
  • What dreams still wait to be fulfilled?

PART 2: “Free at Last”

Listen to “Free at Last.” Discuss these questions as a class:

• What motto do you hear repeated in this song?
• What are some of the hopes and dreams that this song addresses?

PART 3: “I Have a Dream”

Listen to excerpts from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” delivered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, on August 28, 1963.

Discuss these questions as a class:

• What aspects of Dr. King’s dream do you think have become realities?
• What aspects of Dr. King’s dream have not yet come true?
• If you were to update this speech for the present, what other issues might you include?
• How did Dr. King’s speech unite people?
• Why do you think Dr. King chose to reference the Spiritual “Free at Last”?

PART 4: “A New Dream”

Using Dr. King’s speech as a template, share some of your own dreams for your world, and where you would like to see these dreams fulfilled. Perform your composition for the class.

I have a dream that one day …
I have a dream that one day …
I have a dream that one day …
I have a dream that one day …
I have a dream today.
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring.
Let freedom ring from…
Let freedom ring from…
Let freedom ring from…
Let freedom ring from…
And when this happens, we’ll be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro Spiritual, Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Permission to reprint excerpts from the “I Have a Dream” speech is granted by Intellectual Properties Management, Atlanta, Georgia, as exclusive licensor of the King Estate.