This coming Monday we celebrate the life and ministry of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. If that day is a day off for you, an increasingly popular way to honor Dr. King’s legacy is with the concept of “A Day On, Not A Day Off.” Googling “Martin Luther King Day of Service Seattle” will yield many volunteer opportunities.

If you don’t have the day off, or if you are not able to commit to a volunteer day, another great way to remember (in the active sense that Pastor Greg speaks of) Dr. King is by reading or listening to at least one of his speeches other than--or in addition to--his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered during the March on Washington.
That speech has been in the news a lot lately, especially in the context of the following quote: "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."
This quote is cited by many people as support for an “I don’t see color” approach to social issues. Would Dr. King agree with them if he were alive today?

In my opinion, the best way to answer this question, and do justice to his legacy, is to become familiar with the entire depth and breadth of his oratory, not just its most popular example. In doing so, you will gain some much-needed insight into his “content of their character” statement.

• Long before the March on Washington, in 1956, Dr. King delivered a sermon to the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In the sermon, he read to the congregation a letter he had recently “discovered” from St. Paul to the Christians of America. In the letter, Paul gives us a much-needed reminder about what it really means to be a Christian.
o https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/publications/knock-midnight-inspiration-great-sermons-reverend-martin-luther-king-jr-1
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p5iOhXumaQ
• On April 12, 1963, a few months before the March on Washington, Dr. King was in jail, having been arrested for leading a protest in defiance of a court order. Mainstream society, including Time Magazine and the leaders of several white churches in the area, chastised Dr. King for the “poor timing” of the protest. His response to this criticism is the legendary Letter from a Birmingham Jail. In this letter, he takes white moderates to task for their “just be patient” approach to resolving racism and cites them as a greater obstacle to justice than the Ku Klux Klan.
o https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/evangelical-history/an-annotated-guide-to-martin-luther-kings-letter-from-birmingham-jail
• In 1964, Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In this speech, “The Quest for Peace and Justice” he acknowledges the victories of the civil rights movement while cautioning the audience that there was still a long and difficult road ahead.
o https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1964/king/lecture/
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r98tT0j1a0
• On April 4, 1967, one year before his assassination, Dr. King delivered what may be his most controversial speech to the Riverside Church in New York City. It became known as “Beyond Vietnam” and was delivered at great professional cost to him. In this speech, Dr. King highlights the hypocrisy of sending young Black men to die in a war defending rights that they did not have at home, and of spending obscene amounts of money in the same war when so many faced desperate poverty in the US.
o https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJhgXKGldUk
• As the above speech suggests, by 1967 Dr. King had become to see more clearly that racial justice was inexplicably linked to poverty. This is reflected in two of his final speeches—“The Other America” and “The Three Evils of Society”— racial injustice, poverty, and war.
o https://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOWDtDUKz-U
o https://www.scribd.com/doc/134362247/Martin-Luther-King-Jr-The-Three-Evils-of-Society-1967
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sT9Hjh0cHM
It was in “The Other America” that Dr. King made his famous statement that “a riot is the language of the unheard”—a necessary complement to his well-publicized advocacy for non-violent protest.
• Finally, and tragically, Dr. King delivered his “I Have Been to the Mountaintop” speech in Memphis less than 24 hours before his assassination, where he exhorted his audience of striking sanitation workers to stay the course--and America to live up to its ideals.
o https://www.afscme.org/about/history/mlk/mountaintop
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixfwGLxRJU8
Dr. King’s ministry was a complex and evolving one, and simply reading or watching “I Have a Dream” does not do it justice. A summary of most of these speeches can be found at this link:
https://www.history.com/news/martin-luther-king-jr-speeches

Lenore

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