The Question: King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech begins with these words: ‘Five score years ago…’ What was Dr. King referencing with this way of counting?
A The Gettysburg Address
B The Bible
C The Constitution
Standing before the huge statue of a seated Abraham Lincoln, Dr. King opened his speech by saying, ‘Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation…But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free.’ Lincoln’s famous address at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg began with the words, ‘Four score and seven years ago…’ Know why the number 20 is referred to as a ‘score’?
The correct answer is The Gettysburg Address.