Martin Luther King and LBJ had a complicated relationship. As the predominant civil rights leader of his era, King was instrumental in getting the president to overcome political concerns and get civil rights legislation passed ASAP. King was tired of being told to wait.

In August of 1963, Dr. King gave an iconic speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, part of the March on Washington for civil rights and equal economic opportunity for Black Americans. It's Shmoop's hypothesis that Johnson crammed for his Michigan commencement address by listening to King's speech on YouTube.

If you listen to "I Have a Dream," you'll see why.

The themes are similar: a call for equality and justice that references America's historical moral values. Just like Johnson locates his Great Society in the bigger American story, King puts his demands for equality right in the middle of American history. "My dream," he says, is "deeply rooted in the American dream."

And while Johnson was no MLK-level orator, he uses a lot of the same rhetorical devices. Repetition: King begins eight sentences in his speech with "I have a dream"; Johnson begins four with "Will you join?" Alliteration: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character," said King. King makes spiritual and moral arguments; he uses juxtaposition to talk about how the world is now vs. how it could be if we all just set our minds to doing the right thing.

The Great Society speech was broader in scope than King's speech, which focused on justice and equality for Black Americans. But they're cousins at heart. Johnson had a dream, too.