On August 28th, 1963, Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. In honor of this pivotal speech, we asked College of Charleston students, faculty, and staff to reflect on the speech and finish the sentence, “I have a dream: that one day…” We collected responses around campus and then compiled the answers into word clouds. The three different word clouds below represent the College of Charleston’s dreams today; the bigger the word, the more frequently it appeared in student faculty, and staff responses. We hope that these word clouds illustrate the dreams of the community while also revealing the work that still needs to be done to truly make King’s dream a reality.

Above:education and equality are still concerns fifty years later, however, gender and sexuality have emerged as other major issues of importance.

Above: Current events are reflected in some responses with many people including “healthcare” and similar terms in their responses.

Above: The future is one of CofC’s biggest concerns. Many responses involved considerations of education and children, but CofC is thinking about the future for those in our local and global communities: the terms “education,” “accessibility,” and “equality” appear frequently along with “world,” “class,” and “borders.”

What work do you think still needs to be done to achieve Dr. King’s dream? How have our communities changed over the last fifty years and in what ways do they still need to continue to change? And what would you most like to see changed before the 100th anniversary of the “I Have A Dream” speech?

Filed under: Jubilee Project