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listeners tend not to listen in stony silence but to become involved in the speech; they clap, shout, nod, shake
their heads, stand up, whistle, and many other things (Grint 362). Martin Luther King’s ‘Dream Speech’ was
successful because “the audience was dynamically interactive with King by answering his rhetorical questions”
(Grint 362). A fundamental concept in transformational leadership is people do not buy what you do, they
buy why you do it (Burns 101); For King, people saw a leader that fought for reasons far beyond civil rights for
blacks. He fought for higher levels of motivation and morality for all groups in society (Grint 396). King set
out to transform hearts and minds (which is what Burns defines as transformational leadership); there is no
doubt about this concept. So, if he had excluded whites from that equation, the civil rights movement would
not have been about raising motivation and morality. The movement would have been about hatred and ani-
mosity between whites and blacks.
King used his vision, universal speech, and persuasiveness to gain followers during an era where it was eas-
ier said than actually done. For centuries, blacks were not granted the same civil rights as whites, and King had
to find a method of leadership that allowed him to advance the agenda of equality for all. People bought into
this dream because they bought into the authentic relationships and image King created with his followers. He
may have died because someone disagreed with him, but his dream did not die in vain. His transformational
leadership kept his followers motivated and invested in his vision long after his death. King’s successful trans-
formational leadership sparked a flame that ignited an era of change in the hearts and minds of Americans,
and that flame has stayed lit since 1968.