The King and I
Like many a speechwriter, I have spent more than my share of time ransacking Martin Luther King's speeches for good quotations. I was too young to have a living memory of the Rev. King, but you do get a sense through the audio not only of his words but the force they had issuing from that man.
I know he was far from perfect. I know too that I have an advantage of reading his words on the Declaration and America's Founding promise with the benefit of hindsight. But I have to confess: for me, the most arresting words he spoke, bringing home segregation to someone (me) who knew it only from history books and old newspaper clips, was a small clause in a sentence in his now famous 1963 letter from Birmingham jail. It was the part where he spoke as a father, explaining the how "you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children." Maybe it's because I'm a father with young daughters, but that one seared itself into my brain.
Some of us here remember the Gipper's "tear down this wall." One of us here even wrote it. On this Martin Luther King day, wonder if anyone else has particular memories of the Rev. King's language -- or better yet, what it was like to hear him speak in person...
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Jun '10
Re: The King and I
Nope, too young. But my earliest memories of why King was so important involve recreation, too. My mom explained to us kids what the civil rights movement meant by revealing how there was a "Negro Day" at the Jersey shore beaches when she was young and blacks couldn't go to the beach on any day not so designated. It actually wasn't all that long ago.
Re: The King and I
My father, who was from Brooklyn, remembers taking the train to Virginia for Marine officer training, and in Virginia seeing segregated train cars. He had never seen them in Brooklyn so at first he didn't know what he was seeing (he thought it was families out for a picnic). Later on his friend in the FBI would be the agent who in real life solved the Mississippi Burning case of the murdered civil rights protestors.
Re: The King and I
Here is some audio and video of I Have a Dream. I showed this to my fully-minority 6th graders in the South Bronx as well as my fully-non-minority 4th grade students on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It's the perfect audio-visual tool to demonstrate the power and worth of public speaking skills. All the students were silent as they watched. Riveted. Mesmerized.
It's an amazing thing to watch and listen to. I have to admit I had never myself seen video or heard video until I searched it to prepare a lesson for my students. If you ever haven't seen/heard ... here's a link:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream2.htm
Re: The King and I
Bill, I remember as a youngster in Baton Rouge, my elementary school was integrated, but the school bus was not. The bus driver made the black youngsters sit in the back section of the bus. I didn't understand why, but there was only so much a first grader could comprehend. I made fast friends with an African American kid in my class. His name was Terry. We raced, we climbed trees, we laughed and played. But on the way home after school, we were not allowed to sit together on the bus. It seemed odd then,....it seems repulsive now, and rightly so.
Jul '10
Re: The King and I
Jul '10
Re: The King and I
While at the U of Pgh my future husband and I had the pleasure of hearing him speak there. We had third row, center aisle seats. I mention this as on one occasion, when I disagreed with some minor point he made, my thoughts must have registered on my face because he checked for reactions after that. Sometime later when all of us were clapping and cheering, he glanced down, caught my eye, and smiled. That I will never forget.
The speech? Extremely moving, extremely motivating.
Re: The King and I
Does anyone remember any particular words or phrases that really went to the heart, or was it just the whole experience?
Jun '10
Re: The King and I
Very cool story, Barbara! (What is U of Pgh, by the way?)
May '10
Re: The King and I
As someone who grew up during the height of Affirmative Action (as a despicable white male Southerner, no less), I have to remind myself at times that two generations remain who know codified racism through experience, rather than history. I appreciate the perspective.
Aug '10
Re: The King and I
Let's take the day to toss another shovel of dirt onto the antisemitism that was fairly extant in 1961. I grew up in a midwest town and my schoolmates couldn't go to the pool at the country club with me. I didn't have any black schoolmates then, more from location rather than school seg,which there wasn't . I spent more Sundays in temple than the church I was brought up in. And all my schoolmates moved the hell outta town, and I lost their companionship. King's work touched so many more than African-Americans, it touched us all. That is the foremost reminder in my head about those times, the easy chauvinism that could disparage anyone in a breath with whatever religion, whatever skin tint, whatever car, or endless variations on distinctions. Have we evolved from that to some homogenous blob morphing (or slouching) towards relativistic routine? We aren't any less bloodied than our European ancestors, and what do the other ethnicities have to say for themselves when the level playing field becomes apparent ? Everybody has to confess , no hiding behind anything. Liberals excepted.
Re: The King and I
I joined the Reagan speechwriting staff in October 1983, Bill, and my first assignment of any consequence was to draft remarks for the President to deliver when, on November 2, he signed the legislation that made Martin Luther King, Jr. Day--today--a national holiday. As I was doing the research, I, like you, came across one phrase that I found searing--searingly powerful and searingly beautiful--that stays with me to this day. "Work with the faith," King said, "that unearned suffering is redemptive." With that statement, King gave meaning to all that African-Americans had endured in America. I'd thought of it as a waste--a waste of resources, energy, talent, and lives. King instead saw the black experience as--and I think there's no other word for it--holy.
I still feel a sense of satisfaction, even at the remove of so many years, that I was able to work that line into President Reagan's remarks.
Jun '10
Re: The King and I
The idea of unearned suffering being redemptive is incredibly powerful. I believe that's why Irish Catholics have survived centuries of suffering and the diaspora has thrived. It was certainly drilled into my head in my religious upbringing, although the family faced less drastic civil rights abuses than slavery or being shipped off to a penal colony. If you see no reward on earth, what the heck else will keep you chugging along?
May '10
Re: The King and I
Stephen Oates, in his excellent biography of King - Let the Trumpet Sound - writes that the Funtown experience was of no small importance within the King household, and King mined it for its visceral effectiveness. Perhaps its banality generated some of that effectiveness.
And re: Ms. Hennessey's comment above, I can attest that college students as well are mesmerized watching that speech. Maybe the most effective 17 minutes I have in the classroom each semester - and all I do is sit in the back and marvel!
Second place, by the way, goes to that other 17 minutes of speechy gold: Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate. Aside from the drama of its most famous line [drama somewhat overshadowed by the earlier applause that rides over that line], it is an excellent summation of Reaganism more broadly. So thanks, Mr. Robinson, for that, as well as for Ricochet! [Sorry Rob, I don't show "Cheers" episodes in class. If I did it would be the one where they try to count the bolts in the parquet floor of the Boston Gahden - was that one of yours?]
Dec '10
Re: The King and I
I am far too young to be able to speak at any length about MLK Jr., but the line of his that never escapes my mind for more than a day or so is "judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
That is so powerful. We are what we do, not who we are.
I can talk all I want about the benefits of embracing a conservative, free-market, Judeo-Christian worldview...but if I'm not living those ideals out...if I'm not living right...if my character is weak and morals loose...if I only pay lip-service to helping the "least among us", then I'm no better than the progressive Lefties I oppose and decry. Our character is everything. Our interactions in a free society, especially in the public square, must be judged on actions and deeds, not words and promises. I must judge Republicans like Bush the same way I judge Democrats like Obama and Clinton.
Just some thoughts from a mind inspired by MLK Jr.'s prolific and powerful words some 50 years later.
Jul '10
Re: The King and I
After grade school my parents sent me to a neighboring district (still within walking distance of home) for junior high as it was one of the best in the county. Seventh grade is a tough time to be separated from childhood friends, but was made all the worse because the area was very snobbish and the kids did not accept outsiders, especially if any insecurity showed – which in my case it certainly did (not to mention that my mother dressed me funny). My grades dropped from straight A’s and I hated the whole situation.
Then, a Godsend. At the end of that horrible year, my father was transferred from Pittsburgh to Mattoon, Illinois. The most important thing to me once there was to fit in. Many of my new friends were in Rainbow Girls, so it was important that I join as well.
cont.
Jul '10
Re: The King and I
Soon after, I was elected to First Chair (it’s a Masonic thing) and as such, was in charge of getting new members. I gave out some applications, one to a black friend in my class. Later, I was told I’d have to get the application back from her because didn’t I know, “No Blacks Allowed.”
This was terribly upsetting; I hadn’t ever come face-to-face with blatant discrimination, even though it was the late 1950’s. It was one thing to be embarrassed to have to tell her; it was entirely another knowing how much I’d be hurting her feelings. On a bus ride home after school a few days later, I found some words, lame as could be – but she stopped me mid sentence and said she understood, adding that she was sorry I had gotten in trouble. She said they’d soon forget I had done that. I replied I really didn’t care, that after I had returned their stupid piece of paper, I’d be quitting.
Jul '10
Re: The King and I
Mr. McGurn - At my age I'm lucky I don't have to pin a name tag on every morning.
BTW, StickerShock, U of Pgh: University of Pittsburgh, and besides dem Panthers ranked #5 (NCAA), look out New York next week!! We're goin' for seven.
Re: The King and I
I spent the summer of 1966 in Chicago (where I am at this moment) with two other Catholic and three Lutheran high school students in a program aimed at producing a little book -- Wine in Separate Cups it was called. In this connection, I attended a speech that Dr. King gave at a little Lutheran Church and shook his hand afterwards. I do not remember what he said, but I do remember the cadences. His prose was often poetic.
May '10
Re: The King and I
My favorite quote about Dr. King is actually not one he penned, but a passage of Scripture that is a tribute to his legacy. It is engraved in stone in a place of prominence in front of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. For anyone unfamiliar with the museum, it adjoins the Lorraine Motel. His room remains as it did the day he was shot, as does the balcony that overlooks the modest engraving. It reads,"They said one to another, behold, here cometh the dreamer...Let us slay him...and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” - Genesis 37: 19 - 20. I don't know if Dr. King ever personally identified with Joseph, but it was truly a moving experience to read those words 30 years later knowing how far his dream has come.
Oct '10
Re: The King and I
I'm just a young twenty-something, but I've always loved Dr. King. He gave people permission to abandon group solidarity--they could treat each other as equals, free from worrying about group concerns.
Lefty political scientists absolutely hate this--they complain about individualistic culture, how people don't affiliate strongly with groups (like labor unions). Yet this very "failing" is how we all learned to live with each other, in peace.