“After Birmingham, no one would have wanted to follow him.” “If had failed in Birmingham, no one would have asked him to give the concluding speech at the March on Washington,” says Clayborne Carson, a Stanford historian and editor of King’s autobiography. His resilience-and the national coverage the protests garnered-led to the legal, if not de facto, desegregation of the city, and solidified his place on the program at the August event. While in jail there, King wrote his “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” which quickly became an essential treatise for civil rights.
In Birmingham, Ala., in the spring of 1963, King led a series of protests against segregation that were brutally met by attack dogs, fire hoses and arrests. The speech’s journey to its place in history began months before the March on Washington. Crucially, the recording, which is also slated for rerelease for audiences today, challenges long-held notions about that day-and its story reveals King’s struggles over how best to share his words with the world. Spectators on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial chime in audibly as King proceeds through his remarks, making listeners feel as if they’re 10 ft. In its recording, King’s clarion voice carries without the distracting echo picked up by inferior attempts to capture it.
The experience uses original audio, available in rare fidelity thanks to an unlikely source: Motown Records. TIME is releasing The March, a virtual reality experience that takes participants back to that day in August 1963. But this month, there will be a new way to hear the speech.
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