Since my conversation with Darkest Hour screenwriter Anthony McCarten, the movie continues to build buzz. Actor Gary Oldman, who portrays Winston Churchill as he rallied the English people to fight Nazi Germany, has won both the Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice awards for Best Actor in a drama. This week, Focus Features begins circulating a ‘featurette’ to explain the intent behind the studio’s award-winning film. The studio gave me permission to exclusively debut the short video:
The video highlights historical and contemporary leaders whose powerful and inspiring voices triggered movements and inspired change.
No such video would be complete, of course, without featuring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. The quote that accompanies King’s photo in the video is: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The quote comes from one his writings. In April, 1963, King had been arrested for leading a civil rights demonstration in Birmingham. His “Letter From Birmingham Jail” is an extraordinary example of King’s mastery of language. The sentence remains memorable to this day partly because of its structure. It’s an example of antithesis (the use of opposite or contrasting ideas in parallel structure). MLK understood that the sound and structure of words ensured his ideas would be shared.
King’s rhetorical genius was on full display in one of the greatest speeches of the twentieth century, the ‘Dream Speech.’ Remarkably, King improvised the most famous passage of the speech (“I have a dream…”) The passage was not included in the original draft of the speech distributed to the media. Think about the skill required to accomplish such a feat. Most of the speeches we admire (Washington’s farewell, Lincoln at Gettysburg, Winston Churchill’s ‘We Shall Fight,’ Kennedy’s inaugural address, etc.) were all written down and painstakingly edited. King was able to do something truly extraordinary. He read the audience’s mood as he spoke. Then, King decided to go off-script in front of 250,000 people and retrieve an idea he had tested on smaller audiences. And he delivered it perfectly.
Great Leaders Are Students Of Language
In one of my books about storytelling in business, I wrote about a concept I call the “storyteller’s universe.” Great communicators are inspired by the great communicators who came before them. King, Kennedy, Churchill, Lincoln and others were all students of language and leadership.
For example, King studied the words of George Washington Carver, another leader/communicator featured in the Focus Features video. Civil rights leader Benjamin Mays also inspired King. Mays was president of Morehouse College when King attended the school. Every week, Mays would give inspirational sermons to the students. Mays’ sermons taught King to integrate historical references throughout his speeches. King, like many great communicators, was a voracious reader. It showed in his speeches, which were peppered with quotes from Thoreau to Tolstoy and from Longfellow to Emerson.
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other,” John F. Kennedy once said. Kennedy, too, was constantly learning to be a better writer and speaker. For example, Kennedy admired Churchill and carefully studied his rhetoric. Kennedy once said of Churchill, “The incandescent quality of his words illuminated the courage of his countrymen.” A sickly teenager, Kennedy spent prolonged periods of time in a hospital room for various ailments. On one visit, a family friend was surprised to see the teen reading Churchill’s memoirs of World War I. Kennedy was said to have been “mesmerized” by Churchill’s speeches.
In the Focus Features video, a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt reads, “A good leader inspires people to have confidence in their leader. A great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.” The quote is a good reminder that leaders must be careful with their words—words can either hurt or heal. Words can inflame hatred or raise spirits. Used wisely, words can unleash the best in others.