It’s almost gotten to the point where I dread Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s holiday. The antiseptic whitewashing of his words and legacy have essentially been completed in the almost 50 years since his death, and it is almost guaranteed that today we’ll see people who are part of the machine of marginalization of poor folks and people of color quoting King even as they actively trample people. A major part of the whitewashing of King’s legacy has been a fixation with the “I Have a Dream Speech,” perhaps his most soaring oratory, but also his most mainstream-friendly. That speech has been perverted to great effect, used to uphold respectability, play a charade of “color-blindness,” and even chide black people for their own plight.
It is impossible to reconcile these sentiments with the truth of King, who was a radical considered dangerous enough to be surveilled at the highest levels of government, and who was assassinated by a world fearful of his nonviolence. Those reactions are consistent with what King really meant: He promoted an uprising, bloodless as it may be, that would have been as threatening to the traditional power structures of the country as socialism or a new Revolution. He was a dreamer, yes, but also a conflicted, pained, angry, sometimes disillusioned and sarcastic man searching for truth.
I thought it might be useful to dig through King’s oratory history to really outline just how radical he was. This brief snippet of his body of speeches focuses on the last five years of his life, because that’s where I think we truly see both King’s highs and his lows, the true soul-searching and questioning that King expressed.
DON’T SLEEP THROUGH THE REVOLUTION-1966 Address to the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly
Regrettably, a good video of this speech isn’t available. But if you’ve ever enjoyed King’s famous “Mountaintop Speech,” this is a necessary precursor. King was a religious leader, but he also has a strong history (also approached in his “Letters from Birmingham Jail”) of strongly chastising the racism of the church and the reluctance of white religious moderates and clergy to protect fellow black Christians. This address also features King at his most nuanced following the long hot summers of black riots, and provides a counterpoint to the idea that King condemned riots with the same vigor many attribute to him. Excerpt below: full version here.
A second myth that we must deal with is that of exaggerated progress. Certainly we have made progress in race relations. And I think we can all glory that things are better today than they were ten years ago or even three years ago. We should be proud of the steps we’ve made to rid our nation of this great evil of racial segregation and discrimination. On the other hand, we must realize the plant of freedom is only a bud and not yet a flower. The Negro is freer in 1966, but he is not yet free. The Negro knows more dignity today than he has known in any period of his history in this country, but he is not yet equal. There still are stubborn, difficult problems to deal with all over the country. I’m appalled that some people feel that the civil rights struggle is over because we have a 1964 civil rights bill with ten titles and a voting rights bill. Over and over again people ask, what else do you want? They feel that everything is all right. Well, let them look around our big cities. I can mention one where we’re working now, not to say that it’s the worst city in the United States, but just to reveal the problem that we face.