Mahalia Jackson, and King's Improvisation BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, Wash. - The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."s speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 was unusual among great American speeches in that its most famous words - "I have a dream" - were improvised. King had certainly thought about using the "dream" refrain in Washington. He had been fine-tuning it earlier that year. In April, in Birmingham, Ala., deputies of the public safety commissioner, Eugene Connor, known as Bull, attended a mass meeting at the 16th Street Baptist Church, where they reported that King "said that he had a dream of seeing little Negro boys and girls walking to school with little white boys and girls, playing in the parks together and going swimming together." And in June, King electrified an audience at Cobo Hall in Detroit, saying: "I have a dream this afternoon that one day, right here in Detroit, Negroes will be able to buy a house or rent a house anywhere that their money will carry them and they will be able to get a job." But King thought he wouldn't have time to use the "dream" language at the March. He had asked his advisers to prepare drafts - an unusual move, as King typically didn't do more than jot down a few notes on the back of a church bulletin before speaking - and he liked a "bad check" metaphor in one of the drafts, which would support an argument that America had failed to fulfill its promises of liberty and equality to black citizens. He didn't think he could fit both that and the "dream" refrains into the five minutes allotted to each speaker. Walter E. Fauntroy, one of King's advisers, counseled him not to worry about the time limits. "Look, Martin," he said, "you do what the spirit say do." When King arrived at the Willard Hotel in Washington the night before the march, he still didn't have a complete draft. King called his aides together in the lobby, and they started arguing about what should go in the speech. One wanted King to talk about jobs, another wanted him to talk about housing discrimination. Finally King said: "My brothers, I understand. I appreciate all the suggestions. Now let me go and counsel with the Lord. King went up to his room and spent the night writing the speech in longhand. Andrew Young stopped by and saw that King had crossed out words three and four times, trying to find the right rhythm, as if he were writing poetry. King finished at about 4 in the morning and handed the manuscript to his aides so it could be typed up and distributed to the press. The speech did not include the words "I have a dream." King awoke the next morning to the disappointing news that the crowds at the March were smaller than expected. "About 25,000," the television reporters were saying, as King left the hotel. Bayard Rustin, the march's chief organizer, was standing at the Washington Monument, where reporters pressed him about why so few people had shown up. Rustin looked intently at a yellow legal pad in his hand. "Gentlemen," he said, "everything is going exactly according to plan." One of Rustin's aides looked over his shoulder and saw that the pad Rustin was looking at was blank. But at Union Station, buses and trains were coming in regularly, swelling crowds that some onlookers compared to those that had gathered at the end of World War II. Train No. 42 of the Southern Railroad, which had carried Medgar Evers's body to Washington two months earlier, arrived full of marchers. A "Freedom Special," chartered from Florida, pulled in and discharged nearly 800 young people singing a massed chorus of "We Shall Overcome." By late morning, the lawns around the Washington Monument were packed with people, many of whom opened up the box lunches they had prepared (no mayonnaise, the march organizers had warned - it might spoil) and started to picnic. Then, around 11 a.m., some people began walking to the Lincoln Memorial, more followed, and soon most of the crowd was on its way. This surprised Rustin, who had planned for the leaders of the major civil rights groups to lead the way to the Memorial. "My God, they're going!" he shouted. We're supposed to be leading them! He hustled the leaders together, and they joined hands at a break in the middle of the crowd, with most of the marchers already far ahead. Drew Hansen is the author of "The Dream: Martin Luther King Jr., and the Speech That Inspired a Nation" and a member of the Washington State House of Representatives.