Greensboro, NC -- We've all heard the iconic words from the reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I have a dream..."
What you may not know is that Dr. King almost didn't use that phrase at all in his Washington DC speech.
"He's just about wrapping up the speech when somebody called to him, tell them about the dream, Martin," said Paul Ringel, Assistant Professor at High Point University. "And that's when he launches into the speech, the most famous section of the speech, about I have a dream."
Ringel said that King's advisors didn't want him to use the "I have a dream" idea in his speech. He used this phrase in earlier speeches, but his advisors thought it was too vague for the national audience. King's advisors wanted him to focus on the message of the march; passing President Kennedy's Civil Rights Bill.
"Would they have remembered the moment and certainly the speech without that phrase," asks Ringel. "I think probably not. It's one of those phrases that really sticks in our head."