There are a number of testimonies to the power of that speech. One is that Martin Luther King was listening to it in the living room of one of his supporters in Selma. His aides were there, and when Johnson spoke that line, they turned to look at Martin Luther King, and he was crying. And that was the only time they ever saw Martin Luther King cry. Another proof of the speech’s power I got from Busby and Goodwin: when the limousine was coming back to the White House and turned in to the White House gates, the turn was made in silence. The pickets were gone.
