Democrat Ross Wilburn was sworn in as the newest member of the Iowa House on Friday, Sept. 6. He gave a brief speech after the ceremony in the Iowa House.
He talked about his inspiration to run for office.
“I actually decided to run for office back in the late 1990s,” he said. “I was in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the spot where they have marked where Dr. King gave his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. It was that moment that I decided I was going to go ahead and make my first attempt in 1995 to run for city council.”
It was kind of a cool little story, but something about it seemed a bit off. Bleeding Heartland reported that Wilburn first decided to run for city council when he was near the marker where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave the speech.
According to Wilburn, this happened in 1995.
The story seems off because the inscription that marks the spot where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood to deliver the speech was not placed until 2003 to mark the 40th anniversary of the speech.
