Editor’s note: These are remarks by Dr. Reginald Broadnax of Hood Theological Seminary, who spoke Friday at a Salisbury VA Medical Center program on Dr. Martin Luther King. The theme of the program was “The Unfinished Dream.”
When I asked Rev. Bamberg-Revis what your theme was for this celebration, she said this: “The Theme for the program is “The Unfinished Dream” reflecting on Dr. King’s dream, the barriers that have been overcome, the barriers that are delaying its full completion and what we must do to make this dream a reality.” I find this to be a very appropriate theme because Dr. King himself spoke of his dream as a dream deferred; but before I speak anymore about Dr. King’s dream, let me first say a little about why I believe the dream is deferred or unfulfilled.
Unfortunately in this country there is a prevailing attitude of revisionism; of rewriting history in such a way that what once was is now whitewashed to be something other than reality. In South Carolina and in other places across the south, people are celebrating the secession of Southern states from the Union. This celebration of secession tells the story of how patriotic southerners stood against northern aggression in an effort to protect the southern way of life. In this revision of history, slavery was not an issue either of secession or the Civil War; at least from the southern point of view.
In Virginia, a history textbook was brought to public attention because it too painted the cause of the south as a noble cause; and even stated that slaves had actually fought with southern soldiers to preserve the Confederacy. The author has since recanted and the textbooks rewritten. The author stated that she did her research for this textbook on the Internet. I had hoped that students in the state of Virginia deserved better than to have a textbook researched on the internet.
Just last week, as the 112 Congress opened session, the House of Representatives held for the 1st time, a historic reading of the U. S. Constitution; except they left out a portion of Article I, Section 2, which states:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
This is the clause which states that slaves, for the purposes of representation, shall be counted as “three fifths” of a human being. Granted, this was overturned by the 14th Amendment; yet, for politicians who hold the Constitution to be so sacrosanct, this was a glaring omission, and another whitewashing of history.
And; recently, the Governor of Mississippi, recalling the days of the civil rights movement and integration in his hometown of Yazoo City, said: “I just don’t remember it as being that bad.” While the Governor’s memory is somewhat foggy, I would invite him to take a trip to Montgomery, Alabama, to the Civil Rights Memorial. There he will find the names of 41 persons who were martyred for the movement between the years 1955 and 1968; 18 of which were murdered in the state of Mississippi.
These are just a few examples of why I believe Dr. King’s dream is unfulfilled; because the reality of the way things actually were has been revised and distorted. I believe there is a concerted effort on the part of a particular political ideology to paint the days of civil rights, in the words of Governor Barbour, as not “being that bad.” Such whitewashing has even occurred to the speech from which we derive Dr. King’s dream. For from that speech all we hear are the cadences of “I have a dream…;” but we never hear of the police brutality suffered by African Americans. We never hear of sufferings in jails across the south. We never hear of African Americans stripped of their dignity by “for whites only” signs. All of this is mentioned in the speech but we never hear this; all we hear are the cadences of “I have a dream…” You can’t have a dream without the reality that undergirds it. And when the reality becomes this distorted, it’s almost impossible to understand the significance of Dr. King’s dream.
Another reason why Dr. King’s dream is unfulfilled is because we no longer actually know what his dream was. Michael Eric Dyson, in his book, I May Not Get There With You, published in 2000, calls for a 10 year moratorium on the listening to or the reading of the I Have A Dream speech. Dyson wants to get past the misuse and even the abuse of the speech by both Dr. King’s friends and political enemies. Dyson believes that if we would have a moratorium on that speech, it would give us the opportunity to focus on the other speeches of Dr. King and maybe then we could have a better picture of the man and what his dream and his true significance to this country really was. As Dyson says:
The sad truth is, however, that our political climate has eroded the real point of King’s beautiful words. We have been ambushed by bizarre and sophisticated distortions of King’s true meaning. If we are to recover the authentic purposes of King’s address, we must dig beneath his words into our own social and moral habits. Only then can the animating spirit behind his words be truly restored.
We must admit that our picture of Dr. King is very distorted. Our picture of him is a picture of Dr. King on that hot but fateful August day, standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and delivering the famous I Have A Dream speech. We remember that speech as if that is the only speech that he ever gave; but as a Detroiter, I often like to remind people that the speech given at the Lincoln Memorial was actually a revision of the speech 1st given in Detroit 6 weeks earlier. However, because of that one speech on that hot August day, we remember Dr. King as having a dream; and on celebrations such as this, we vow to keep Dr. King’s dream alive.
We remember the words of that speech where he concluded with what might be the most famous line, “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we’re free at last.” But equally as famous from the speech are these words: “I have a dream 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.” And I think it is this line, more than any other, which causes us to both remember Dr. King’s dream, and at the same time miss his message. Because of this line in the speech, we are told that Dr. King dreamed of a color-blind society. However, Dr. King never says that anywhere in the speech. Certainly, Dr. King dreamed of a society where skin color would not be a hindrance to one’s progress and advancement within the society, but he never said that we should not see and recognize the color of one’s skin. In fact, Dr. King once said: “Yes, we must stand up and say, ‘I’m black and I’m beautiful,’ and this self affirmation is the black man’s need, made compelling by the white man’s crimes against him.”
We have condensed the whole of Dr. King’s life and work to a few lines of one speech, and say that the whole of his message and dream was for racial equality. As important as that is, and as important as it remains for us today to work towards racial equality in this society — we’ve come a long way, but there’s still a long way to go — this was not the whole of Dr. King’s dream or message to America.
So, for the most part I’ve adhered to the moratorium called for by Dr. Dyson. In fact, when I teach the Martin Luther King class at Hood, I don’t even mention the speech; except on the 1st day of class where I say I’m not going to talk about the speech; and students come away from the class knowing far more about Dr. King than they imagined, and they understand the significance of his life and work. But today, I’ going to break that moratorium and discuss the I Have A Dream speech, but from the perspective of the dream, not of one speech; the full dream of Dr. King’s life. And to simplify Dr. King’s life for the short time that I have today, I want to talk about Dr. King’s dream of equality, and his dream for nonviolence.
Now, the place to begin to understand Dr. King’s dream is not the I Have A Dream speech, but instead the words of a radical left-wing revolutionary who penned these words:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Now I’m being somewhat facetious when I refer to one of our “founding fathers,” Mr. Jefferson in particular, as a “radical left-wing revolutionary;” but to the British that’s exactly what he was. He sought, through violent revolution, to overthrow the authority and rule of the King. Yet, he made a statement that we believe still rings true today: that all persons are created equal. However, these words are the ultimate contradiction within both American life and history. When Mr. Jefferson penned these words, he held as property human beings who were not even considered as human, let alone as equal within this society. And the whole history of this country has been a struggle with this contradiction: that a country founded upon the proposition that all human beings are created equal and yet, within that same society, a whole group of people are enslaved, subjugated, segregated, and disenfranchised from the full life and prosperity of the society. In short, they do not have the freedom to pursue life, liberty, nor happiness. As Dr. King said:
Ever since the Founding Fathers of our nation dreamed this noble dream, America has been something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against herself. On the one hand we have proudly professed the principles of democracy, and on the other hand we have sadly practiced the very antithesis of those principles. Indeed slavery and segregation have been strange paradoxes in a nation founded on the principle that all men are created equal.
It is this contradiction – this “schizophrenic personality,” which frames Dr. King’s dream.
With respect to the subject of racial equality, I won’t say much here, except that what we forget is that Dr. King began his most famous speech by saying:
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was the promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
This demand for freedom and the security of justice, which was the promise of all who lived within this society, did not come easy to African Americans in this country, but we have at least made a partial payment on that promissory note. In the past 40-plus years, we have come far enough to realize that Dr. King was right and that we as a society needed to end the injustice of segregation and racial discrimination. But what we haven’t realized as a society is that for true racial justice, we need more than just access to public accommodations, lunch counters, and public drinking fountains. True racial equality will be achieved when not just African Americans, but Native Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and all persons of non-Caucasian descent are able to share equally in the bounty that is America.
What is missed in the distortion of Dr. King’s dream is the growth and expansion of the dream itself. Dr. King began by dreaming of the full equality of African Americans (Negroes) in this country, but by the end of his life, that equality extended to poor whites in Appalachia and Hispanics in the southwest. It extended from European immigrants in the Northeast to Asian immigrants in the Northwest. It extended from Native Americans on the Great Plains to factory workers in the Midwest. Because Dr. King believed in the promise of this country that all are created equal, he believed that all should share in the prosperity of the country. As he questioned in 1967, “Why are there forty million poor people in America.” For Dr. King, the promise of America wasn’t just that all persons were created equal, but that by being citizens of this country, all persons would be able to share equally in the prosperity and bounty of this country. And the very fact that some had, and that most had not; and that the gulf between the have’s and the have-not’s was growing greater, was for Dr. King a sign of injustice within the society.
In this, Dr. King grew weary of his own dream and in 1967, before a Senate select committee he said: “The attainment of security and equality for Negroes has not yet become a serious and irrevocable national purpose. I doubt that there was ever a sincere and unshakable commitment to this end.” The reason Dr. King began to doubt America’s commitment to racial equality is because America failed to seriously live up to its creed that all persons are created equally. Dr. King looked at a society of have’s and have-nots and questioned America’s commitment to equality. Few seem to remember why he was in Memphis in April of 1968. He was there on behalf of garbage workers who were on strike because the City of Memphis refused to pay the workers an extra .40 an hour, for a total of $2.10 an hour. Far beyond a minimum wage, in 1967 and 1968 Dr. King advocated for a living wage. As Dr. King said:
There is nothing to prevent us from paying adequate wages to schoolteachers, social workers and other servants of the public to insure that we have the best available personnel in these positions which are charged with the responsibility of guiding our future generations. There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American citizen whether he be a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid or day laborer. There is nothing except shortsightedness to prevent us from guaranteeing an annual minimum – and livable – income for every American family.
King believed that every American should be guaranteed a living wage which would afford them decent housing, the ability to feed and clothe their family, and to give their children a proper education. And when he left Memphis he was on his way to Washington because the 1st Amendment gave citizens the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. And Dr. King was in the middle of assembling poor people from across the country to assemble in Washington to petition their government when an assassins’ bullet fell him in Memphis. Dr. King died trying to extend the promise of equality to the least of those in America.
The second aspect of Dr. King’s dream is that of nonviolence. The act of nonviolence was most visibly displayed probably in Birmingham in 1963; when, in the face of Bull Connor’s fire hoses and police dogs, Dr. King and his protesters remained nonviolent in spite of the violence perpetrated against them. But this call for nonviolence extended beyond just civil rights protests and marches into the very fabric of American life.
Most of you will remember that beginning in Watts in ’65 and continuing throughout the 60’s, the worst being in Detroit in ’67, urban riots broke out across the country. As Dr. King traveled from city to city exhorting persons not to settle their differences through violence; the refrain would always echo back to him, “what about Vietnam?” And as those voices “hit home,” Dr. King began to speak out against the violence his own country was perpetrating in Vietnam. As Dr. King said:
This way of settling differences is not just. This business of ….sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
War itself is a tragedy, but the greater tragedy is how war participated in the perpetuation of poverty. Dr. King came to realize that the build-up and prosecution of the Vietnam War was diverting necessary resources from the war on poverty at home. Each day that this country spent millions of dollars on an unjust war meant that it also unjustly took money and resources from the needs of this country, and those most affected were the poor. As the war continued to drag on, programs were cut and budgets were slashed just to maintain the war, and with each escalation of the war, and each increase in the Defense budget, something had to give on the domestic side, and it was always the social programs that were cut, particularly programs for the poor. This led Dr. King to say in his Riverside speech, “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
Today, to borrow a phrase, we are back to the future. Today we are embroiled in two wars and the new Congress believes that our deficit is unsustainable; so to bring the deficit under control, we must cut domestic spending and entitlement programs. To quote the great Yogi Berra, “it’s déjá vu all over again.” Yet, what troubles me most is not the violence of war overseas, but the violence we perpetrate on ourselves at home.
It is impossible to come to this King day event and speak about nonviolence and not be cognizant of what happened in Tucson this past weekend. While many have speculated on the motivation of the suspected shooter, few have acknowledged that incidences like this are all too common within our society. Just before Christmas a man opened fire at a school board meeting in Florida. Just before the Tucson shooting a teen in Omaha, Nebraska shot the principal and assistant principal of his school before killing himself. Gun wars rage on a daily basis in our major cities between rival groups and gangs over drugs and turf. And the fact that in some states a person can buy military type weapons at the local Walmart speaks to a deeper malady in our society; the fact that guns and other weapons of violence are so prevalent in our society speaks to a penchant in our very nature towards violence. Yet, even Dr. King saw this in his day: the choice we have is not between violence and nonviolence, it’s between violence and non-existence. Dr. King would often quote President Kennedy who said, “either we will learn to live together as brothers or die together as fools.”
So today, I believe that Dr. King’s dream has been distorted to such an extent that we no longer know what is dream was. Rarely does anyone mention the dream of full equality for all citizens of this country; and even more rare today is the call for nonviolence. So what must we do to make this dream a reality? We must do two things.
First, to those who would say that things just weren’t that bad, we must bear witness to the truth and say how things really were. We must tell our stories. Those drank from “colored only” fountains must tell your story. Those who paid your fair at the front of the bus, only to sit at the back of the bus must tell your story. Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts, speaking of the efforts to whitewash and rewrite history says:
We must bear witness.
The energy spent blasting Haley Barbour could more productively be spent starting an oral history project at church. Or bringing elder speakers into schools to share segregation memories. Or encouraging children to visit and mark the crucible places of their ancestors. Or …?
We must claim our remembered passages. It is in those passages that a people define themselves. And Barbour’s sugarcoating of African-American history offers a stark reminder:
If we don’t tell our stories, someone else will.
We must tell our story and in telling our story, not only do we write and preserve our history, we tell the story of how we have overcome. For:
We have come over the way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path thro’ the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white glean of our bright star is cast.
And when we tell our story, not only do we write and preserve our history, we also keep the vision – the dream in front of us and chart our course for where we still have to go. For while we have come, there are still many who have to make their way, treading that same path. By telling our story, we not only tell how we have come, we chart the course that others may follow. And we cannot be satisfied until every person in this country fulfills the dream of true equality.
The second thing we must do is to commit ourselves to nonviolence. This might be difficult to do in a country committed and invested in the 2nd Amendment; but it is something we must do. The choice we have is not between violence and nonviolence, it’s between violence and non-existence. “Either we will learn to live together as brothers or die together as fools.”
The great poet Langston Hughes asked:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Dr. King, referencing the sentiment of Langston Hughes, spoke of his dream as a dream deferred. However, in 1967, in his Christmas Sermon on Peace, Dr. King spoke about his own dream, and I will conclude with his words:
“In 1963, on a sweltering afternoon, we stood in Washington D.C. and talked to the nation about many things. Toward the end of that afternoon, I tried to talk to the nation about a dream that I had had, and I must confess to you today that not long after talking about that dream I started seeing it turn into a nightmare, just a few weeks after I had talked about it. It was when four beautiful, unoffending, innocent Negro girls were murdered in a church in Birmingham, AL. I watched that dream turn into a nightmare as I moved through the ghettos of the nation and saw my black brothers and sisters perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity, and saw the nation doing nothing to grapple with the Negroes’ problem of poverty. I saw that dream turn into a nightmare as I watched my black brothers and sisters in the midst of anger and understandable outrage, in the midst of their hurt, in the midst of their disappointment, turn to misguided riots to try to solve that problem. I saw that dream turn into a nightmare as I watched the war in Vietnam escalating, and as I saw so-called military advisors, sixteen thousand strong, turn into fighting soldiers until today over five thousand American boys are fighting on Asian soil. Yes, I am personally the victim of deferred dreams, of blasted hopes, but in spite of that I close today by saying I still have a dream, because, you know, you can’t give up in life. If you lose hope, somehow you lose that vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of all. And so today I still have a dream.”
“I have a dream that one day men will rise up and come to see that they are made to live together as brothers. I still have a dream this morning that one day every Negro in this country, every colored person in the world, will be judged on the basis of the content of their character rather that the color of his skin, and every man will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. I still have a dream that one day the idle industries of Appalachia will be revitalized and the empty stomachs of Mississippi will be filled, and brotherhood will be more than a few words at the end of a prayer, but rather the first order of business on every legislative agenda. I still have a dream today that one day justice will roll down like water, and righteousness like a might stream. I still have a dream today that in all of our state houses and city halls men will be elected to go there who will do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with their God. I still have a dream today that one day war will come to an end, that men will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, that nations will no longer rise against nations, neither will they study war no more. I still have a dream today that one day the lamb and the lion will lie down together and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid. I still have a dream today that one day every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill will be made low, the rough places will be made smooth and the crooked places straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. I still have a dream that with this faith we will be able to adjourn the councils of despair and bring new light into the dark chambers of pessimism. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when there will be peace on earth and good will toward men. It will be a glorious day, the morning stars will sing together, and the sons of God will shout for joy.”