HONORING DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
examining the ‘real’ dream speech
members of the Birming-
ham KKK cell dynamited
the
Sixteenth
Baptist
Church just after its Sunday
School services had ended,
killing four girls – Addie
Mae Collins, 14, Denise
McNair, 11, Carole Robert-
son, 14, and Cynthia
Wesley, 14 – and wounding
20 others. In the maelstrom
that enveloped the city that
By Lee A. Daniels
NNPA Columnist
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. I have a
dream today!
A suggestion for these
days of special attention to
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Whenever people cite this
sentence from his iconic “I
Have A Dream” speech, ask
them if they know the rest
of the speech.
I’ve long suspected that
people who cite that sen-
tence as proof we today
should stop taking race into
account in the necessary re-
ordering of American
society haven’t bothered to
understand – or, most likely,
even read –the rest of the
speech. I think that’s
because they’ve adopted the
let’s-pretend-race-has-no-
meaning
stance
day, two Black teenaged
boys who were not mem-
bers of the church were shot
to death. Virgil Ware, 13
was killed by two White
male teenagers. Johnny
Robinson, 16, was shot in
the back of the head by a
state police officer.
The Black freedom strug-
gle in the South went on.
So, this Martin Luther
King, Jr. Day, when people
only reference the Dream
Speech’s “the content of
their character” line and let
it go at that, you’ll know
they’re just whistling
“Dixie.”
Lee A. Daniels is a long-
time journalist based in
New York City. His essay,
“Martin Luther King, Jr.:
The Great Provocateur,”
appears in Africa’s Peace-
makers: Nobel Peace
Laureates
of
African
Descent (2014), published
by Zed Books. His new col-
lection of columns is Race
Forward: Facing America’s
Racial Divide in 2014.
lee a. daniels
“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.’”
He follows this with a
“dream” that “one day on
the red hills of Georgia, the
sons of former slaves and
the sons of former slave-
owners will be able to sit
down together at the table of
brotherhood,” and another
Come, he said, for our
children’s sake, let us recognize
our common humanity
conservatives have been
pushing for the last 30 years
– ever since losing their all-
out effort to defeat the
movement for the King
national holiday.
So when people refer to
that sentence, ask them to
explain King’s also saying
to the throng, “I am not
unmindful that some of you
have come here out of great
trials and tribulations. Some
of you have come fresh
from narrow jail cells. And
some of you have come
from areas where your quest
for freedom left you bat-
tered by the storms of
persecution and staggered
by the winds of police bru-
tality.”
Or, ask them to explain
his reminding America “of
the fierce urgency of Now
… It would be fatal for the
nation to overlook the
urgency of the moment. …
The whirlwinds of revolt
will continue to shake the
foundations of our nation
until the bright day of jus-
tice emerges.”
Those are just two of the
extraordinary passages in
what is a wonderfully com-
plex sermon, full of
hidden-in-plain-sight
demands and warnings
along with its call to our
better selves. They and
other passages illuminate
the true meaning of its most
famous sentence – a mean-
ing underscored by the three
“dreams” that immediately
precede it and the one
immediately after it.
Before mentioning his
children, King declares that
that “even the state of Mis-
sissippi, a state sweltering
with the heat of injustice,
sweltering with the heat of
oppression, will be trans-
formed into an oasis of
freedom and justice.”
And then, after he speaks
of his children, he says, “I
have a dream that one day,
down in Alabama, with its
vicious racists, with its gov-
ernor having his lips
dripping with the words of
‘interposition’ and ‘nullifi-
cation’ – one day right there
in Alabama little Black boys
and Black girls will be able
to join hands with little
White boys and White girls
as sisters and brothers.”
In other words, King
places his dream for all chil-
dren squarely within the
necessity of reforming three
states with long histories of
horrific state-sponsored and
state-aided-and-abetted
murders, beatings and other
forms of violence that tar-
geted Black children as well
as adults.
He uses children as the
focus of his dreams not only
because children are born
without prejudice and fear,
but also because their being
“able to join hands” at “the
table of brotherhood” could
only occur with their par-
ents’ acceptance of racial
equality. Here, King was
speaking directly to ordi-
nary White southerners.
Come, he said, for our chil-
dren’s sake, let us recognize
our common humanity.
The White South of 1963
answered two weeks later.
On September 15, 1963,
January 14, 2015 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 13