Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Raleigh Speech Video Surfaces

A North Carolina State University professor discovered never-before-seen footage of Dr. Martin Luther King delivering a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Source: Michael Ochs Archives / Getty

Many North Carolinians might be surprised to know that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once stood before thousands of people and delivered a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina. It is a little known fact, but the iconic activist spoke to a crowd of 5,000 people at Reynolds Coliseum on North Carolina State University’s campus in 1966, and for decades, almost no one could provide proof that it happened since no audio from the event was ever recovered.

For years, the moment lived on the margins of documented history, leaving the kind of knowledge gap that’s all too common when it comes to preserving the history of Black civic life in the South. However, that all changed thanks to the work of one inquisitive professor at a University in the city where the speech took place.

After tracing the history of the event, NC State Professor Jake Miller connected with Marshall Wyatt, who is the son of film photographer Edgar Wyatt. Edgar is responsible for capturing the only footage of Dr. King’s speech on July 31, 1966, and his son Marshall has held onto it ever since. In all of the years since, no institution had claimed it and no archive had sought it out.

As for the footage, the video has no sound, but its message is still loud and it still paints a vivid picture of what occurred that day. This footage resurfacing is a reminder of how much history depends on the deliberate choices of people who choose to preserve what institutions overlook.

Watch the exclusive Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. footage here: wral.com

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