THE achievements of the Reverend Martin Luther King cannot be overstated, with even an annual federal holiday for Americans celebrating his legacy of equality. 

But did you know that his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech initially contained a few caveats, and notably a time limit?

Biographers believe that his wife Coretta Scott King proposed the omissions to transform it into the inspirational oration we know today, on the grounds that prophecies of 2025 were not necessary and orange people did not exist and would never be elected president.

Extracts from the earlier draft read: “Five score years ago, a great American named Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Three score years from now, I see a world of civil liberties and justice ending and the US slipping right back to the same old bullshit.

“The Negro still is not free. Yet a world is possible where our great nation can see a black man rise to the highest office in the land. Then, a mere 12 years later, all of that will end for good due to the electorate’s spite.

“I have a dream that we will be free one day that will last for, oh, let’s say about six decades give or take. Do not be mistaken, these sixty years of freedom will not be all fun either. But then it will get so much worse.

“I know the dangers I bring upon myself by speaking out. Should something happen to me, I only hope a shameless opportunist will declare he is revealing the truth about it in an empty political gesture to further a far-right agenda.

“So I call on you, brothers and sisters, to not give up. Fight, make sacrifices and do whatever is necessary so that our country can learn the true meaning of justice. Until they forget it again to ‘own the libs’.”

And so Martin Luther King’s dream came to pass, though future generations will never realise because within the next few years all mention of him will be banned.

Next week: staying in 1963, when President Kennedy began talks with the CIA about an overcomplicated early retirement plan.