{"id":38850,"date":"2025-01-21T00:15:17","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T00:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-january-20-2025-misread-quotes-mlks-dream\/"},"modified":"2025-01-21T00:15:17","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T00:15:17","slug":"americanstudies-january-20-2025-misread-quotes-mlks-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=38850","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: January 20, 2025: Misread Quotes: MLK\u2019s Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[I had
\noriginally planned a series on historical inaugurations this week, but I don\u2019t
\nimagine too many of us want to be thinking about the inauguration any more than
\nwe have to. So instead, I\u2019m gonna go with a suggestion from my wife, using the
\noccasion of MLK Day to highlight a handful of historical quotes, from him and
\nothers, that our conservative commentators and politicians tend to get very
\nwrong!]<\/p>\n

On two
\nways to reframe the one King quote we collectively (but inaccurately) remember.<\/span><\/p>\n

For many
\nyears now, I\u2019ve shared the same
\npost for MLK Day<\/a>, highlighting the many layers of King beyond the March on Washington
\nspeech (and even the many layers of that speech beyond the famous \u201ccontent of their
\ncharacter\u201d line). That\u2019s all important context for today\u2019s post, so I\u2019d ask you
\nto check it out and then come on back for more.<\/span><\/p>\n

Welcome
\nback! All those are reasons to go beyond this one quote and this one speech in
\ncommemorating King, but it\u2019s equally true and important to reframe our
\ncollective memories of that individual quote in multiple ways. For one thing,
\nthe \u201ccontent of their character\u201d paragraph is the third of five straight \u201cI
\nhave a dream\u201d paragraphs (here\u2019s the
\nfull transcript of the speech<\/a>), each articulating a different (if interconnected)
\ndream about race, community, and America. Three of the other four focus in
\nparticular on Southern states, highlighting quite fully the layers of
\nprejudice, racism, segregation, and racial terrorism that these communities
\nstill feature so prominently and centrally in 1963 (one hundred years after the
\nEmancipation Proclamation, a frustrating anniversary with which King begins his
\nspeech). King might be arguing in the \u201ccontent of their character\u201d paragraph that
\nit would be ideal if we could stop seeing and thinking about skin color and race
\n(which is how conservatives love to use that line), but these adjoining
\nparagraphs make clear that the targets of that argument are Southern white supremacists
\nspecifically and (I would argue) all white Americans generally. Physician, heal
\nthyself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Relatedly,
\nbut even more overarchingly, King frames all five of those \u201cI have a dream\u201d
\nparagraphs with a sixth, introductory paragraph worth quoting in full: \u201cSo even
\nthough we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It
\nis a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day
\nthis nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold
\nthese truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.\u201d In this Saturday
\nEvening Post Considering History column<\/span><\/a><\/i>
\nfor MLK Day four years ago, I made the case for King as exemplifying my concept
\nof critical patriotism, and I don\u2019t think he ever did so more succinctly and potently
\nthan in this quote. That means we have to recognize that every one of the
\nsubsequent dreams is a goal for the future, and also and most importantly something
\nwe have to work for together, to push the nation toward that idealized but never
\nyet realized more perfect union. Conservatives want to read King as chastising his
\nprogressive peers for a misplaced focus on race, but the truth was precisely
\nthe opposite\u2014he was critiquing conservatives for the ways their racism has kept
\nus from progressing. Feels like an important lesson to consider for MLK Day
\n2024. <\/span><\/p>\n

Next misread
\nquote tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What
\ndo you think?\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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