In an essay in the current New Yorker, the poet Ocean Vuong remembers the first time he heard Martin Luther King speak. He was a fourth-grader, immigrated from Vietnam and a poor reader, hiding from from bullies during his lunch hour in the school library, listening to a cassette, “Great American Speeches”:
Through the headset, a robust male voice surged forth, emptying into my body. The man’s inflections made me think of waves on a sea. Between his sentences, a crowd—I imagined thousands—roared and applauded. I imagined their heads shifting in an endless flow. His voice must possess the power of a moon, I thought …
Speechwriter John Phillips steered us to the piece, with a note, “Think you’ll like this.” Yes, we do.