‘I have a dream that one day...one day right there in
Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with
little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers’ – Martin Luther King
Jr., I Have a Dream Speech, 1963
There must be
lights burning brighter somewhere
Got to be birds
flying higher in a sky more blue
If I can dream of
a better land
Where all my
brothers walk hand in hand
Tell me why, oh
why, oh why can’t my dream come true? – Elvis Presley, If I Can Dream, 1968
Let me set the scene. Its 1968: a year synonymous with
social unrest. In the space of two months the Civil Rights Movement in America
had lost its leader, Martin Luther King Jr., and one of its most influential
advocates, Robert F. Kennedy. Add this to the ‘rise of black power’ at the same
time and it is easy to understand why so many believed that King’s
Dream had died with him.[1]
All was not lost though. Jump to December and there
might have been life in the dream yet. Where 1968 had witnessed the demise of
one King, another could be seen to be making his comeback. Ladies and
gentlemen, Elvis had entered the building.
The 1968 Comeback Special as it has popularly come to
be known aired on NBC Television to critical acclaim on December 3 1968. It is
credited with revitalising Elvis’ career but it also did something remarkable;
something often overlooked. He closed the show with If
I Can Dream, a haunting song that truly encapsulated
the plight of the African American community in the sixties. In essence, it was
a plea from the King himself for his fellow man to abandon their racist ways
and live in harmony with one another.
‘It was the finest music of his life. If ever there
was music that bleeds, this was it. Nothing came easy that night, and he gave
everything he had – more than anyone knew was there.’[2]
What’s the significance of the above quote, you ask?
Well, Elvis was not your average white American. No, unlike most white
American’s who grew up in the South, Elvis embraced the black culture which
surrounded him. He spent his formative years immersed in the ‘black religious
music of Memphis’ – I imagine something akin to that one scene in
The Blues Brothers.
Perhaps most significantly, he embraced the teachings
of the great Reverend William Herbert Brewster ‘that a better day was coming,
one in which all men could walk together as brothers’.[4]
If I Can Dream goes beyond being just
another Elvis hit then. You only need to watch his performance to see that he truly
believed in what he was singing – seriously, just watch it.
It was ultimately a song that embodied the plight of a
decade. In the bleak atmosphere left in the wake of the King and Kennedy
assassinations, Elvis offered a glimmer of hope. Here was arguably the most
influential artist of all time singing about civil rights, and if anybody could
make a change it was Elvis.
Elvis Presley: questionable actor, the undisputed King
of Rock ‘n’ Roll, and unanticipated Civil Rights advocate.
By Jordan Newton
[1] Thomas Sugrue, ‘Toward a New Civil Rights
History’, Labor: Studies in Working-Class
History of the Americas, Vol. 7, No. 1, (2010), pp.37-44
[2] Harry Sewlaw, “The Grain of the Voice”: Elvis
Presley’s 1968 NBC-TV Special’, Journal
of Literary Studies, Vol. 31, No.4, (2015), pp. 56-70, p. 57
[3]
Charles Reagan Wilson, “Just a Little Talk
with Jesus”: Elvis Presley, Gospel Music, and Southern Spirituality’, Southern Cultures, Vol. 12, No. 4,
(2006), pp. 74-91, p.82
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