[I had originally planned a series on historical inaugurations this week, but I don’t imagine too many of us want to be thinking about the inauguration any more than we have to. So instead, I’m gonna go with a suggestion from my wife, using the occasion of MLK Day to highlight a handful of historical quotes, from him and others, that our conservative commentators and politicians tend to get very wrong!]
On two
ways to reframe the one King quote we collectively (but inaccurately) remember.
For many
years now, I’ve shared the same
post for MLK Day, highlighting the many layers of King beyond the March on Washington
speech (and even the many layers of that speech beyond the famous “content of their
character” line). That’s all important context for today’s post, so I’d ask you
to check it out and then come on back for more.
Welcome
back! All those are reasons to go beyond this one quote and this one speech in
commemorating King, but it’s equally true and important to reframe our
collective memories of that individual quote in multiple ways. For one thing,
the “content of their character” paragraph is the third of five straight “I
have a dream” paragraphs (here’s the
full transcript of the speech), each articulating a different (if interconnected)
dream about race, community, and America. Three of the other four focus in
particular on Southern states, highlighting quite fully the layers of
prejudice, racism, segregation, and racial terrorism that these communities
still feature so prominently and centrally in 1963 (one hundred years after the
Emancipation Proclamation, a frustrating anniversary with which King begins his
speech). King might be arguing in the “content of their character” paragraph that
it would be ideal if we could stop seeing and thinking about skin color and race
(which is how conservatives love to use that line), but these adjoining
paragraphs make clear that the targets of that argument are Southern white supremacists
specifically and (I would argue) all white Americans generally. Physician, heal
thyself.
Relatedly,
but even more overarchingly, King frames all five of those “I have a dream”
paragraphs with a sixth, introductory paragraph worth quoting in full: “So even
though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It
is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day
this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” In this Saturday
Evening Post Considering History column
for MLK Day four years ago, I made the case for King as exemplifying my concept
of critical patriotism, and I don’t think he ever did so more succinctly and potently
than in this quote. That means we have to recognize that every one of the
subsequent dreams is a goal for the future, and also and most importantly something
we have to work for together, to push the nation toward that idealized but never
yet realized more perfect union. Conservatives want to read King as chastising his
progressive peers for a misplaced focus on race, but the truth was precisely
the opposite—he was critiquing conservatives for the ways their racism has kept
us from progressing. Feels like an important lesson to consider for MLK Day
2024.
Next misread
quote tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think?
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