The Persistence of Memory

Martin Luther King, Jr. is pretty much revered nowadays, no question: tons of people in the U.S. and all over the world think of him as a kind of martyred saint. People saw him that way during his lifetime, too. But not everyone today feels he's the authority on race in America, and not everyone felt that way during his own time. Especially, y'know. Racists. But not only them.

There are basically two camps here, and both emphasize certain facets of MLK while downplaying or criticizing others.

One side, whom we'll call the "dreamers," take their cue from Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" vision of equality—the part about being judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character. The dreamers believe that (1) the best society is one in which race is basically a non-issue, and (2) the best way to achieve that society is to…go ahead and act that way. They think we should downplay race as much as possible, treat everyone as individuals, and generally just be cool with people of different races.

The other side, whom we'll call the "historians," have a different approach. Represented in King's own time by the Black Power folks, but also by MLK himself, they think the idea of colorblind equality is naive at best. In their eyes, it papers over injustice, largely in order to ease the consciences of white people: "Forget all that bad stuff like slavery and segregation and racism—we're all one big, happy family. They also believe colorblindness fails to address the issues faced by people of color, especially African Americans, living in a historically white-dominated society. They want more racial awareness, more political action tailored to the specific needs of various demographics.

Both sides think they're right about MLK. They are.

Confused yet?

Full-On Double Mountaintop: What Does It Mean?

These two contending ideas have taken on various shades and intensities of meaning over the last 50 years, but the tension between them has remained more or less the same. So the way we read MLK in general, and "I've Been to the Mountaintop" in particular, hasn't changed all that much. Still, like King himself, this speech isn't easily categorized. See for yourself:

On the one hand, Dr. K saw the Memphis sanitation strike as an extension of the Poor People's Campaign, which was his most deliberately multiracial initiative ever. In "I've Been to the Mountaintop," MLK tells his audience they should care about, well, everybody:

• "God has commanded us to be concerned about […] His children who can't eat three square meals a day" (21.7)—whoever they might be.
• Like the Good Samaritan, the audience should be "concerned about [their] brother" (27.10), including "a man of another race" (27.7) and even the "sick white brothers" threatening King's life (44.2).

But MLK also talks a lot about race:

• He warns about the plight of "the colored peoples of the world" (12.1).
• And alludes to the legacy of blackface minstrelsy and its racist stereotypes (13.1).
• He also urges his African American audience to "stay together and maintain unity" (14.3) and "strengthen black institutions" (25.1).

The ideal of a society that places race at the periphery; the necessity of acknowledging and eliminating racism: balancing these two ideas is the challenge of Dr. King.

Maybe we still haven't quite wrapped our heads around what it means to be both a historian and a dreamer.

A Penny for Your Thoughts. And Work.

No matter what we think of MLK's views in general, the subject matter of "I've Been to the Mountaintop"—economic inequality, particularly along racial (and also gender) lines—is hotter than ever.

What should we do about it? Is MLK-style protesting and boycotting an effective way of dealing with this problem today, or should the government get more involved? Is economic inequality not even a systemic problem to begin with, or is the whole economy rigged to favor the already rich? People today still debate all of these things.

Are We There Yet?

A lot of the issues Dr. K was talking about way back in 1968 are still with us today. But, in another way, the meaning of this speech changed literally overnight.

The day after he delivered "I've Been to the Mountaintop," Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. The speech is mostly remembered not for all the things we've been talking about, but for its last few minutes, when Dr. King seems to foretell his premature death and assures his audience that "we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land" (45.10).

Is he talking about African Americans? Americans? The "colored peoples of the world" (12.1)? The whole world? We can guess, but "we" is sometimes a tricky word, because it's not always explicitly defined. Is MLK speaking here as the dreamer, the historian, or both? Who are "we," and what does it mean to reach the Promised Land?

A half century later, our country is still haunted by these questions.