I Have a Dream Speech – Martin Luther King, Jr.

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. today, I link to MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech delivered August 28, 1963 in Washington, D.C. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Be inspired.

For a transcript of the speech, you can consult the National Archives at this link.  It is fascinating to examine the draft of the speech. In particular, the phrase “I have a dream today” isn’t in the draft. He improvised the phrase.  He had used it before but it wasn’t in the prepared remarks. In the moment, inspiration came to him and he took the speech to another level. See this interview with Clarence Jones for more on that story.

Martin Luther King, Jr. – Letter from Birmingham Jail

Martin_Luther_King_Jr_NYWTS_4Dated April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King wrote a letter from jail in Birmingham during the non-violent campaign there. In the letter, he defended the strategy of non-violence used in the Birmingham campaign.
One of the striking elements of the letter is King’s disappointment with the white clergy in the South. If I could paraphrase King for today, I might ask the Trump evangelical advisory board, “Who is your God? Where are your voices of support when the president said fine people rallied with Nazis and white supremacists?”
Birmingham Jail MLK
Today, Donald Trump disbanded his group of CEO business advisors because many of them resigned over his remarks yesterday about Charlottesville. Not one of the evangelical advisory board resigned, nor did any of them condemn the remarks.  Is this how it is going to be? Is silence in the face of evil how evangelicals of this age will be remembered?
 

Response to IOTC – Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Speech: Our God is Marching On

On Monday,  I wrote about the Institute on the Constitution’s distortion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s work and mission. The IOTC accuses those who cast King, Jr. as a civil rights champion of revising history. I addressed the basic problems in their arguments yesterday. Each day this week, I will post a link to another speech or article from King, Jr. which makes his position clear. Yesterday, I posted segments of his speech titled “Give Us the Ballot.” Today, I am posting a speech delivered in Montgomery, AL on March 25, 1965 titled “Our God is Marching On.”
King marched for racial equality but he did not believe such an outcome would happen with laws requiring equal treatment alone. He also asked the federal government for assistance with housing, jobs and income. King Jr. did not limit his mission to “God-given rights.” Agree or disagree, the IOTC assertion that King, Jr. sought only God-given rights (by their definition) is betrayed by his frequent calls for government intervention in housing, and poverty.
King, Jr. said:

Let us therefore continue our triumphant march (Uh huh) to the realization of the American dream. (Yes, sir) Let us march on segregated housing (Yes, sir) until every ghetto or social and economic depression dissolves, and Negroes and whites live side by side in decent, safe, and sanitary housing. (Yes, sir) Let us march on segregated schools (Let us march, Tell it) until every vestige of segregated and inferior education becomes a thing of the past, and Negroes and whites study side-by-side in the socially-healing context of the classroom.

Let us march on poverty (Let us march) until no American parent has to skip a meal so that their children may eat. (Yes, sir) March on poverty (Let us march) until no starved man walks the streets of our cities and towns (Yes, sir) in search of jobs that do not exist. (Yes, sir) Let us march on poverty (Let us march) until wrinkled stomachs in Mississippi are filled, (That’s right) and the idle industries of Appalachia are realized and revitalized, and broken lives in sweltering ghettos are mended and remolded.

That King was a champion of civil rights is beyond dispute.

Now it is not an accident that one of the great marches of American history should terminate in Montgomery, Alabama. (Yes, sir) Just ten years ago, in this very city, a new philosophy was born of the Negro struggle. Montgomery was the first city in the South in which the entire Negro community united and squarely faced its age-old oppressors. (Yes, sir. Well) Out of this struggle, more than bus [de]segregation was won; a new idea, more powerful than guns or clubs was born. Negroes took it and carried it across the South in epic battles (Yes, sir. Speak) that electrified the nation (Well) and the world.
Yet, strangely, the climactic conflicts always were fought and won on Alabama soil. After Montgomery’s, heroic confrontations loomed up in Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, and elsewhere. But not until the colossus of segregation was challenged in Birmingham did the conscience of America begin to bleed. White America was profoundly aroused by Birmingham because it witnessed the whole community of Negroes facing terror and brutality with majestic scorn and heroic courage. And from the wells of this democratic spirit, the nation finally forced Congress (Well) to write legislation (Yes, sir) in the hope that it would eradicate the stain of Birmingham. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave Negroes some part of their rightful dignity, (Speak, sir) but without the vote it was dignity without strength.

Others knew him as a “civil rights agitator:”

My people, my people, listen. (Yes, sir) The battle is in our hands. (Yes, sir) The battle is in our hands in Mississippi and Alabama and all over the United States. (Yes, sir) I know there is a cry today in Alabama, (Uh huh) we see it in numerous editorials: “When will Martin Luther King, SCLC, SNCC, and all of these civil rights agitators and all of the white clergymen and labor leaders and students and others get out of our community and let Alabama return to normalcy?”

Read the entire speech here.

IOTC: Power Struggle in the League of the South? Or Cynical Attempt to Exploit Martin Luther King, Jr.?

The League of the South as a group is not celebrating Martin Luther King Day. On the League of the South Facebook page, League president Michael Hill is celebrating Confederate heroes today:

In Memoriam . . .
As we Southern Nationalist mark the birthdays of two of our great military heroes–Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson–let us not be content to merely remember. Rather, let us emulate them and continue the honorable cause that motivated these two noble Southern men–the survival, well being, and independence of the Southern people.
Note: If you wish to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. please go elsewhere. He is not one of us. And besides, who can honor a communist, womanizer, and plagiarist?–Michael Hill

In a mind-bending inconsistency, Hill tells readers who honor King, Jr. “to go elsewhere.” Yet, on the board of his organization, the League of the South, is one who has at least pretended to honor King — Michael Peroutka. In the video below, Peroutka speaks in glowing terms of King’s call for the equality.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZpHPwpm8l8[/youtube]
In the video, Peroutka errs dramatically by saying King did not call for civil rights but, nonetheless, he gives tribute to King, Jr. and his “I Have a Dream” speech. According to League president Hill, Peroutka should go elsewhere.  Is this inconsistency an indication of a power struggle in the League? Or is Peroutka’s video, and Hill’s silence about it, just a cynical effort to appeal to multiple audiences?
I think the answer to the second question is yes. My opinion is that the Institute on the Constitution (which is simply Peroutka’s law firm) is masquerading as a pro-American, and pro-Constitution organization. Recently, Peroutka told Steve Deace that civil rights laws are not laws and should not have been passed. On the IOTC website is an article justifying racial discrimination, and this one calling Confederate troops, “the American forces” who fought for freedom and “an American way of life.” Peroutka supports the League’s secessionist aims, and pledged the resources of the IOTC and his family to the League’s efforts.
I don’t know what Peroutka’s motives are for invoking King, but there is nothing consistent or particularly noble about it. If Peroutka really wants to give tribute to King and his work, then he should publicly denounce the League and as Michael Hill advised – “go elsewhere.”