I learned about Prathia Hall only recently. While listening to a presentation at a Convoy of Hope event one of the speakers shared the story that Hall, who was an American leader and activist in the civil rights movement, was the inspiration for Martin Luther King’s, I Have a Dream speech.
According to one internet source, Hall, who was of African American heritage was raised in Philadelphia. Her father, Berkeley L. Hall a pastor, was the founder of the Mount Sharon Baptist Church, an inner-city congregation in an under-served area of the city. A passionate advocate for racial justice, her father, who regarded her as his successor, inspired her to pursue religion and social justice. Prathia believed she was brought into the world for a reason – to integrate religion and freedom together.
Her leadership potential was recognized early. She credited many groups, such as the National Conference of Christians and Jews for singling her out and helping her to develop. Hall attended predominantly white schools. At the age of five she took a train ride South with her sisters to visit their grandparents. The girls were forced to sit in the segregated seats located just behind the engine. This was her first experience of dehumanizing discrimination.
By her mid-teens, Hall hoped to join the Civil Rights Movement. In high school, she became involved with Fellowship House, an ecumenical social justice organization, where she studied the philosophy of nonviolence and direct action. After graduating from high school, she attended Temple University, located in Philadelphia, not far from her home. In 1961, while still a junior at Temple, Hall was arrested in Annapolis, MD for participating in the anti-segregation protests on Maryland's rural Eastern Shore. She was held without bail in jail for two weeks.
After graduating from Temple with a degree in political science, Hall joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) working in southwest Georgia.
She became one of the first women field leaders in southwest Georgia working as a civil rights advocate helping African Americans register to vote. On September 6, 1962, night riders fired into the home where Hall and other activists were staying, wounding her and two other men.
Hall was shot at and jailed many times in Georgia while canvassing door to door to register voters. She taught in Freedom Schools (educational programs to teach potential voters how to prepare for and pass the required voter registration tests).
She became involved with the Albany Movement, a desegregation and voters’ rights coalition formed in Albany, GA where she became known for her oratorical power, which she expressed in movement meetings and preaching.
In September 1962, Hall agreed to participate in a service commemorating Mount Olive Baptist in Terrell County, which had been burned to the ground by the Ku Klux Klan. It had been a center for voter registration and for other mass meetings in the county among African Americans. The service was attended by Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Bevel a strategist with the Sothern Christian Leadership Conference.
Hall was scheduled to deliver a prayer during the service. According to Bevel, "As she prayed, she spontaneously uttered and rhythmically repeated an inspiring phrase that captured her vision for the future…'I have a dream'". Bevel claims that her use of this memorable phrase is what inspired King to begin to use it as a fixture in his sermons.
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