CNN To Air Entire “I Have a Dream” Speech

By Chris Ariens 

CNN has reached agreement with the estate of Martin Luther King, Jr. that will allow the network to replay King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in its entirety tomorrow at NoonET. In 1999, a federal court ruled in “Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc.” that the speech did not constitute “general publication” giving the King family the rights to the speech and the ability to charge a fee for its redistribution.

It is not known how much CNN paid to air the speech in its entirety.

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The airing of the speech is part of CNN’s MLK Day programming. Anchors Soledad O’Brien and Don Lemon lead coverage along with CNN political analyst Roland Martin from the Mall, not far from where King gave that speech on Aug. 28, 1963.

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