Sixty Years after The March

 Juliana Menasce Horowitz at Pew:

For this report, we surveyed 5,073 U.S. adults from April 10 to April 16, 2023, using Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel.1...

• Most Americans say King has had a positive impact on the country, with 47% saying he has had a very positive impact. Fewer (38%) say their own views on racial equality have been influenced by King’s legacy a great deal or a fair amount.
• 60% of Americans say they have heard or read a great deal or a fair amount about King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Black adults are the most likely to say this at 80%, compared with 60% of White adults, 49% of Hispanic adults and 41% of Asian adults.
• 52% of Americans say there has been a great deal or a fair amount of progress on racial equality in the last 60 years. A third say there’s been some progress and 15% say there has been not much or no progress at all. Still, more say efforts to ensure equality for all, regardless of race or ethnicity, haven’t gone far enough (52%) than say they have gone too far (20%) or been about right (27%).
• A majority (58%) of those who say efforts to ensure equality haven’t gone far enough think it’s unlikely that there will be racial equality in their lifetime. Those who say efforts have been about right are more optimistic: Within this group, 39% say racial equality is extremely or very likely in their lifetime, while 36% say it is somewhat likely and 24% say it’s not too or not at all likely.
• Many people who say efforts to ensure racial equality haven’t gone far enough say several systems need to be completely rebuilt to ensure equality. The prison system is at the top of the list, with 44% in this group saying it needs to be completely rebuilt. More than a third say the same about policing (38%) and the political system (37%).
• 70% of Americans say marches and demonstrations that don’t disrupt everyday life are always or often acceptable ways to protest racial inequality. And 59% say the same about boycotts. Fewer than half (39%) see sit-ins as an acceptable form of protest. And much smaller shares say the same about activities that disrupt everyday life, such as shutting down streets or traffic (13%) and actions that result in damage to public or private property (5%).

Demographic and partisan differences

These survey findings often differ by race, ethnicity and partisanship – and in some cases also by age and education.

• Some examples:59% of Black Americans say their personal views on racial equality have been influenced by Martin Luther King Jr. a great deal or a fair amount. Smaller shares of Hispanic (38%), White (34%) and Asian (34%) Americans say the same.
• Adults ages 65 and older and those with at least a bachelor’s degree are more likely than younger adults and those with less education to be highly familiar with King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
• 58% of White adults say there has been a great deal or a fair amount of progress on racial equality in the last 60 years. This compares with 47% of Asian adults, 45% of Hispanic adults and 30% of Black adults. Republicans and those who lean Republican (67%) are more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners (38%) to say this.
• 83% of Black adults say efforts to ensure equality for all, regardless of race and ethnicity, haven’t gone far enough. This is larger than the shares of Hispanic (58%), Asian (55%) and White (44%) adults who say the same. Most Democrats (78%) say these efforts haven’t gone far enough, compared with 24% of Republicans. Some 37% of Republicans say these efforts have gone too far.
• Black Americans, Democrats and adults younger than 30 who say efforts to ensure racial equality haven’t gone far enough are among the most likely to say several systems, ranging from the economic system to the prison system, need to be completely rebuilt to ensure equality.

Fake Trump Photos, Fake Trump Voice

If MLK were alive today, I have no doubt in my mind that he would be close friends with President Trump.

Two men who risked everything for equality. Two men who were spied on by the government.

MLK and DJT would have so much to talk about. pic.twitter.com/nIqR0LqbL5

— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) July 18, 2023

Two of our nation’s greatest advocates for Civil Rights: MLK and DJT. pic.twitter.com/O3TxhqWXiB

— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) July 15, 2023

Matt Novak at Forbes:

The fake images of King and Trump together were created using artificial intelligence software, though it’s not clear precisely which program was used. AI generator tools like DALL-E, Stability Diffusion and Midjourney allow anyone to create a photo-realistic image simply by using a text prompt and describing the scene they’d like to see created. Companies with large photo libraries have filed suit against various image generators this year, including a lawsuit from Getty Images against Stability AI filed in February.

Louis Jacobson and Loreben Tuquero at Poynter:

Never Back Down, a political action committee supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the Republican presidential nomination, used former President Donald Trump’s own words against him in a new ad.

Candidates do that all of the time. In this case, however, the ad-makers pushed the boundaries by manipulating audio to read out loud an attack against Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds in Trump’s voice.

The message spoken in the ad accurately reflects what Trump wrote on Truth Social, but he did not speak those words himself.

The ad criticized Trump for “attacking” Reynolds, a popular fellow Republican from one of the most important early states in the presidential primary calendar.

The post on Trump’s Truth Social platform said, “I opened up the Governor position for Kim Reynolds, & when she fell behind, I ENDORSED her, did big Rallies, & she won. Now, she wants to remain ‘NEUTRAL.’ I don’t invite her to events!”

A viewer wouldn’t know that Trump didn’t say this out loud: Never Back Down took Trump’s words and used artificial intelligence to create audio of a Trump-like voice reading them.

 

Slavery and GWTW

 At The Ankler, historian David Vincent Kimel writes about deleted scenes in the script of GoneWith the Wind.

Remarkably, much of the excised material in my Rainbow Script was a harsh portrayal of the mistreatment of the enslaved workers on Scarlett's plantation, including references to beatings, threats to throw “Mammy” out of the plantation for not working hard enough, and other depictions of physical and emotional violence. Had these scenes remained in the final film, they would have stood in startling juxtaposition to the pageantry on display at the premiere in Atlanta. At the time of production, GWTW’s romanticization of slavery led African American thinkers like Ben Davis to call it “dangerous poison covered with sugar.” William L. Patterson went even further, describing it as “a weapon of terror against black America.” These voices were in the critical minority in the twentieth century, but over time, scholars have increasingly emphasized GWTW’s promulgation of the mythology of the Lost Cause, an interpretation of the Civil War that romanticizes the struggle as a war of Northern aggression that desecrated Southern honor and culture.

The article starts with a remarkable revelation about MLK: 

At the Atlanta premiere of Gone With the Wind on December 15, 1939, the 10-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. was dressed as a slave. It was the second night of an official three-day holiday proclaimed by the mayor of Atlanta and the governor of Georgia. King’s choir was serenading a white audience, directed to croon spirituals to evoke an ambiance of moonlight and magnolias for the benefit of the movie’s famous producer, David O. Selznick.

MLK Day

 Daniel Stid:

We have to avoid the temptation to domesticate Martin Luther King Jr. It is comforting to see him only as the aspirational dreamer of a color-blind society, a vision especially reassuring to white Americans, and leave things at that. But there was a prophetic radicalness to King’s statesmanship, and a telling critique of the American political tradition, that we also must reckon with, learn from, and respond to.

The great political scientist Herbert Storing made this point more broadly in introducing a volume of political writings by African Americans (including King) that he edited and published in 1970. Using the language of that era, Storing observed that,

“When young Frederick Douglass, speaking before the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1847, asked, “What Country Have I?”, he put a question that circumstances compel every black American to ask. And when Douglass affirmed that he had no love for America and that, indeed, he had no country, he gave an answer that every thoughtful black in America has had to consider. This was not Douglass’s final answer, as it has not been the final answer of most blacks in America; but the question does not thereby lose its potency [Storing’s emphasis]....In important respects, then, black Americans are like a revolutionary or, more interestingly perhaps, a founding generation. That is, they are in the difficult but potentially glorious position of not being able to take for granted given political arrangements and values, of having to seriously canvass alternatives, to think through their implications, and to make a deliberate choice. To understand the American polity, one could hardly do better than to study, along with the work and thought of the founders, the best writings of the blacks who are at once its friends, enemies, citizens, and aliens.”

It is thus fitting for us to reflect on the writings, speeches, and acts of Martin Luther King Jr. on the national holiday we have established to honor this great American statesman. It is also fitting that the United States has built a memorial to King on our National Mall, poised on a line between the memorials honoring Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. It is especially fitting that, backed by Lincoln, King looks across the Tidal Basin toward Jefferson with the steadfastness of one who has come to collect an outstanding debt.

References and Allusions in MLK's "I Have a Dream"

 The "I Have a Dream" speech contains many references and allusions to key ideas, sites, and documents of American civic culture.  The text below contains relevant links in red.

A major theme of our textbook is the relevance of religion in American public life.  Many passages in the speech refer or allude to Bible verses, spiritual songs, sermons, and other aspects of religion. These links are in blue.

------------------------------------------------

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. 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 a 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, insofar 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."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. 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.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.

We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating for whites only. 

We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

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.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

The Declaration and the Constitution

George F. Will at WP:

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s genius — he was, in a sense, the final Founder — was in understanding what the University of Pennsylvania’s Rogers M. Smith terms the “Declaration of Independence-centered view of American governance and peoplehood.” Over the years, this stance of “Declarationists” explicitly opposed Jacksonian democracy’s majoritarian celebration of a plebiscitary presidency, and the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act’s premise that majorities (“popular sovereignty”) could and should — wrong on both counts — settle the question of whether slavery should expand into the territories.

The learned and recondite disputes currently embroiling many conservatives, disputes about various doctrines of interpretive constitutional “originalism,” are often illuminating and sometimes conclusive in constitutional controversies. But all such reasoning occurs in an unchanging context. Timothy Sandefur, author of “The Conscience of the Constitution,” rightly sees the Declaration as the conscience because it affirms “the classical liberal project of the Enlightenment and the pervasiveness of such concepts as natural rights.”

Furthermore, Sandefur says, this explains the Constitution’s use of the word “liberty,” which “does not refer to some definitive list of rights, but refers to an indefinite range of freely chosen action.” Which means that the Constitution should be construed in the bright light cast by the Declaration’s statement of the founding generation’s general intention to privilege liberty.

The MLK Ad

During the Super Bowl, Dodge hawked pickup trucks by using the voice of Martin Luther King.

As Phil Klinkner points out, King actually used the speech to denounce advertising, specifically auto advertising. "The Drum Major Instinct," February 4, 1968:

Now the presence of this instinct explains why we are so often taken by advertisers. You know, those gentlemen of massive verbal persuasion. And they have a way of saying things to you that kind of gets you into buying. In order to be a man of distinction, you must drink this whiskey. In order to make your neighbors envious, you must drive this type of car. (Make it plain) In order to be lovely to love you must wear this kind of lipstick or this kind of perfume. And you know, before you know it, you're just buying that stuff. (Yes) That's the way the advertisers do it.

I got a letter the other day, and it was a new magazine coming out. And it opened up, "Dear Dr. King: As you know, you are on many mailing lists. And you are categorized as highly intelligent, progressive, a lover of the arts and the sciences, and I know you will want to read what I have to say." Of course I did. After you said all of that and explained me so exactly, of course I wanted to read it. [laughter]

But very seriously, it goes through life; the drum major instinct is real. (Yes) And you know what else it causes to happen? It often causes us to live above our means. (Make it plain) It's nothing but the drum major instinct. Do you ever see people buy cars that they can't even begin to buy in terms of their income? (Amen) [laughter] You've seen people riding around in Cadillacs and Chryslers who don't earn enough to have a good T-Model Ford. (Make it plain) But it feeds a repressed ego.

You know, economists tell us that your automobile should not cost more than half of your annual income. So if you make an income of five thousand dollars, your car shouldn't cost more than about twenty-five hundred. That's just good economics. And if it's a family of two, and both members of the family make ten thousand dollars, they would have to make out with one car. That would be good economics, although it's often inconvenient. But so often, haven't you seen people making five thousand dollars a year and driving a car that costs six thousand? And they wonder why their ends never meet. [laughter] That's a fact.

Covenant

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks at AEI:

In a contract, two or more people come together to make an exchange. You pay your plumber – I have a Jewish friend in Jerusalem who calls his plumber Messiah. (Laughter.) Why? Because we await him daily, and he never turns up. (Laughter.) So in a contract, you make an exchange, which is to the benefit of the self-interest of each. And so you have the commercial contract that creates the market and the social contract that creates the state.

A covenant isn’t like that. It’s more like a marriage than an exchange. In a covenant, two or more parties each respecting the dignity and integrity of the other come together in a bond of loyalty and trust to do together what neither can do alone. A covenant isn’t about me. It’s about us. A covenant isn’t about interests. It’s about identity. A covenant isn’t about me, the voter, or me, the consumer, but about all of us together. Or in that lovely key phrase of American politics, it’s about “we, the people.”

The market is about the creation and distribution of wealth. The state is about the creation and distribution of power. But a covenant is about neither wealth nor power, but about the bonds of belonging and of collective responsibility. And to put it as simply as I can, the social contract creates a state but the social covenant creates a society. That is the difference. They’re different things.

Biblical Israel had a society long before it had a state, before it even crossed the Jordan and enter the land, which explains why Jews were able to keep their identity for 2,000 years in exile and dispersion because although they’d lost their state, they still had their society. Although they’d lost their contract, they still had their covenant. And there is only one nation known to me that had the same dual founding as biblical Israel, and that is the United States of America which has – (applause) – which had its social covenant in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and its social contract in the Constitution in 1787.

And the reason it did so is because the founders of this country had the Hebrew Bible engraved on their hearts. Covenant is central to the Mayflower Compact of 1620. It is central to the speech of John Winthrop aboard the Arbela in 1630. It is presupposed in the most famous line of the Declaration of Independence.

Listen to the sentence. See how odd it might sound to anyone but an American. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” Those truths are anything but self-evident. They would have been unintelligible to Plato, to Aristotle, or to every hierarchical society the world has ever known. They are self-evident only to people, to Jews and Christians, who have internalized the Hebrew Bible. And that is what made G. K. Chesterton call America “a nation with the soul of a church.”

Now, what is more, every covenant comes with a story. And the interesting thing is the Hebrew Bible and America have the same story. It’s about what Lincoln called a new birth of freedom or, by any other name, what we know as an exodus. The only difference is, in America, instead of the wicked Egyptians, you had the wicked English. (Laughter.) Instead of a tyrant called Pharaoh, you had one called King George III, and instead of crossing the Red Sea, you crossed the Atlantic. But it’s OK. As a Brit, I want to say, after 241 years, we forgive you. (Laughter.)

But that is why Jefferson drew as his design for the great seal of America the Israelites following a pillar of cloud through the wilderness. It is why Lincoln called Americans the “almost chosen people.” It is what led Martin Luther King on the last night of his life to see himself as Moses and to say, “I’ve been to the mountaintop and I have seen the Promised Land.”

Bush on National Identity

From remarks by President George W. Bush on October 19, 2017 at the "Spirit of Liberty: At Home, in the World," the Bush Institute’s national forum on freedom, free markets, and security. From Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, New York.

The American dream of upward mobility seems out of reach for some who feel left behind in a changing economy. Discontent deepened and sharpened partisan conflicts. Bigotry seems emboldened. Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication.

There are some signs that the intensity of support for democracy itself has waned, especially among the young, who never experienced the galvanizing moral clarity of the Cold War, or never focused on the ruin of entire nations by socialist central planning. Some have called this “democratic deconsolidation.” Really, it seems to be a combination of weariness, frayed tempers, and forgetfulness.

We have seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty. At times, it can seem like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together. Argument turns too easily into animosity. Disagreement escalates into dehumanization. Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions – forgetting the image of God we should see in each other.

We’ve seen nationalism distorted into nativism – forgotten the dynamism that immigration has always brought to America. We see a fading confidence in the value of free markets and international trade – forgetting that conflict, instability, and poverty follow in the wake of protectionism.

We have seen the return of isolationist sentiments – forgetting that American security is directly threatened by the chaos and despair of distant places, where threats such as terrorism, infectious disease, criminal gangs and drug trafficking tend to emerge.
In all these ways, we need to recall and recover our own identity. Americans have a great advantage: To renew our country, we only need to remember our values.
...
Our identity as a nation – unlike many other nations – is not determined by geography or ethnicity, by soil or blood. Being an American involves the embrace of high ideals and civic responsibility. We become the heirs of Thomas Jefferson by accepting the ideal of human dignity found in the Declaration of Independence. We become the heirs of James Madison by understanding the genius and values of the U.S. Constitution. We become the heirs of Martin Luther King, Jr., by recognizing one another not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

This means that people of every race, religion, and ethnicity can be fully and equally American. It means that bigotry or white supremacy in any form is blasphemy against the American creed.

Adopted Sons and Daughters of America

The Wall Street Journal excerpts remarks by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy at a Sept. 21 naturalization ceremony in Bakersfield, Calif.:

Every one of you has a story—an American story now. You come from many countries—but today the Pilgrims are your ancestors. You’ve known many leaders—but today George Washington is your Founding Father. You’ve experienced many hardships—but today Valley Forge is your winter.

The Declaration is your inspiration and the Constitution is your inheritance. Lincoln is your liberator. . . . The GIs of D-Day are your heroes. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of your dreams. The moon bears your flag. And our future is your future.

You are adopted sons and daughters of America with every right, every privilege, every duty and every national memory of those blessed with citizenship by birth. I pray that as you grow into your place as a citizen, that what you would feel more than anything else is gratitude.

Endowed by their Creator with Certain Unalienable Rights

Matt K. Lewis writes at The Week:

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo recently declared: "Our rights do not come from God." Then this week, Sen. Ted Cruz's assertion that "our rights don't come from man, they come from God Almighty" came under scrutiny when Meredith Shiner, a Yahoo reporter,tweeted: "Bizarre to talk about how rights are God-made and not man-made in your speech announcing a POTUS bid? When Constitution was man-made?" [Cruz was closely paraphrasing JFK.]

I am astounded by how many people in this country (and particularly in the media) don't believe the Declaration of Independence's assertion that all men are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." The Declaration of Independence also refers to "The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." Believing that our laws are God-given, and not man-made, has become something that secular liberals seem to take joy in openly mocking. As if there were something inherently funny or backwards about faith. As if there were something hollow and foolish about believing in God....

Without an absolute law that transcends the whims of man, the very concept of "rights" metastasizes into a definition having more to do with the current and often capricious preference of the majority. Oppressed minorities have long found comfort (and, in fact, seized the moral high ground) by pointing out that there is a greater law, a universal sense of right and wrong, that transcends the will of the majority.

The majority can be wrong. The majority can be in the wrong. History is littered with examples of the folly of man-made law, of man-made injustice. (This is not to say people haven't done terrible things in the name of God — they have!)

Consider Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail": "We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights," he wrote. "To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law."

More and more, the secular left seems to want to entrust human law to always be just. That's fine when it is. But what happens when it isn't?

Religion and the March on Washington

Yesterday's post discussed the role of religion and American civic culture in Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech.  The program for the March on Washington drives home the point.  It started with the national anthem, and included prayers and remarks by several religious figures: Archbishop Patrick O'Boyle, Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, Rabbi Uri Miller, Mathew Ahmann of the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice, Rabbi Joachim Prinz, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Dr. Benjamin Mays.  Mahalia Jackson sang the gospel song, "How I Got Over; (also below).

References and Allusions in the "I Have a Dream Speech"

The "I Have a Dream" speech contains many references and allusions to key ideas, sites, and documents of American civic culture.  The text below contains relevant links in red.

A major theme of our textbook is the relevance of religion in American public life.  Many passages in the speech refer or allude to Bible verses, spiritual songs, sermons, and other aspects of religion. These links are in blue.

------------------------------------------------

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. 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 a 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, insofar 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."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. 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.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.

We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating for whites only. 

We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

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.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/24/v-print/3580335/full-text-of-martin-luther-king.html#storylink=cpy

Racial Divides

The Pew Research Center has a graphic slideshow (click anywhere on the picture) on trends in demographics and racial disparities since Dr, King's "I Have a Dream" speech fifty years ago.

"I Have a Dream" -- the Story in Numbers

Many posts have discussed civil rights and racial demographics.  The Census Bureau reports:

The 50th Anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" Speech and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: Aug. 28

On Aug. 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to more than 200,000 people from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. His famous "I Have a Dream" speech and the march were key moments in the American Civil Rights Movement, before the landmark legislation securing voting, housing and employment rights for all Americans regardless of race. To mark the anniversary, the U.S. Census Bureau has gathered key statistics that measure changes in some characteristics of the black population to date.

Note: The analysis is limited to the black population because of limited historical data for all racial and ethnic groups. Unless otherwise noted, the reference to the 2012 black population in this publication is to respondents who said they were one race (black) or more than one race (black plus other races).

Population

1963	2012
20,255,067 The total estimated black population in the United States.	44,456,009 The total estimated black population in the United States.
10.7% The estimated percentage of the U.S. population that was black.	14.2% The estimated percentage of the U.S. population that was black.

Sources: http://www.census.gov/popest/data/national/asrh/pre-1980/tables/PE-11-1963.xls
(1963)
http://factfinder2.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/PEP/2012/PEPALL5N?slice=year~est72012

Voting

1964	2012
58.5% The percent of the total black population 18 years and older who voted in the presidential election.	62% The percent of the total black population 18 years and older who voted in the presidential election.
69.3% The percent of the total U.S. population 18 and older that voted in the presidential election.	56.5% The percent of the total U.S. population 18 and older that voted in the presidential election.

Sources: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/socdemo/voting/publications/historical/A1.xls
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/voting/cb13-84.html

Elected Officials

1970	2011
1,469 The number of black elected officials, the first year this kind of information was collected.	10,500 The estimated number of black elected officials.

(Data courtesy of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.)
Source: http://www.jointcenter.org/sites/default/files/upload/research/files/National%20Roster%20of%20Black%20Elected%20Officials%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf

Income

1963	2011
$22,266 (in 2011 dollars) The median family income for blacks was 55 percent of the median income for all American families.	$40,495 The median family income for the black-alone population was 66 percent of the median income for all American families.
$25,826 and $14,651 (in 2011 dollars) Median income of black men and black women who worked full time, year-round.	$40,273 and $35,146 Median income of single-race black men and black women who worked full time, year-round.

Sources: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/families/2011/F05_2011.xls
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/2011/P36B_2011.xls

Poverty

1966	2011
41.8% Poverty rate for blacks — 1966 is the closest year these statistics are available to the historic speech. Nationally, the poverty rate for all races was 14.7 percent.	27.6% Poverty rate for single-race blacks. Nationally, the poverty rate for all races was 15 percent.

Source: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/historical/hstpov2.xls

Housing

1970	2011
41.6% Homeownership rate for blacks — 1970 is the earliest this information is available for race.	43.4% Homeownership rate for blacks.
15.3% Percentage of U.S. renter occupied housing units that were black households.	19.3% Percentage of U.S. renter occupied housing units that were black households.

Note: The estimates in this section for 2011 pertain to the single-race black population.
Sources: http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/13276827v1p1.zip (1970: Ch. 1, table 3)
http://factfinder2.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/11_1YR/B25003B (2011, single-race black)
http://factfinder2.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/11_1YR/B25003 (2011, total U.S. population)

High School Graduates

1964	2012
25.7% Percentage of blacks age 25 and over who completed at least four years of high school.	85.0% Percentage of blacks age 25 and over who completed at least four years of high school.
2.4 million Number of blacks 25 and over with at least four years of high school.	20.3 million Number of blacks 25 and over with at least a high school diploma.

Note: The 2011 information in this section refers to the single-race black population.
Source: http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/1964/tab-01.pdf
http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/historical/tabA-2.xls
http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/2012/tables.html, Table 1

College Students and Graduates

1964	2012
234,000 Number of black undergraduate college students.	2.6 million Number of black undergraduate college students in 2011 — this is more than 10 times as many as 1964.
3.9% Percent of blacks age 25 and over who completed at least four years of college.	21.2% Percent of blacks age 25 and over who completed at least four years of college.
365,000 Number of blacks who had at least a bachelor's degree.	5.1 million Number of blacks who had at least a bachelor's degree.

All the 2011/2012 information in this section pertains to the black alone population.
Sources: http://www.census.gov/hhes/school/data/cps/1964/tab03-05.pdf (1964) Table 5
http://www.census.gov/hhes/school/data/cps/2011/tables.html, Table 5
http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/historical/tabA-2.xls
http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/1964/tab-01.pdf, page 12.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/2012/Table1-04.xls
http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/2012/tables.html, Table 1.

Other Resources:

Census Brief: The Black Population: 2010
1960 Census
Demographic Trends in the 20th Century

Martin Luther King as Preacher

The New York Times reports on Jonathan Rieder's new book about Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

As America nears the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech in August, Dr. Rieder has become one of the most astute scholars of Dr. King as a preacher. In two consecutive books developed over nearly 20 years of research, Professor Rieder has immersed himself in the subject of Dr. King as a pulpit minister who shaped his theology in sermons delivered to black congregations.

The public Dr. King, Dr. Rieder argues, cannot be understood without understanding the preacher’s talking black talk to black folk. Dr. Rieder’s new book, “Gospel of Freedom,” traces the evolution of both the “I Have A Dream” speech and the “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King’s most renowned written work, through years of his obscure sermons....

Dr. Rieder’s book stakes very specific turf in the corpus of King scholarship with its relentless focus on Dr. King the preacher. By doing so, as Mr. Forbes pointed out in his comments, Dr. Rieder is restoring the overtly religious element to Dr. King and the freedom movement. While African-Americans readily grasp the link, many white liberals diminish or ignore it out of discomfort with religion being granted a role — even a positive one — in political discourse.

“The image of liberal secular King misses the essential role of prophetic Christianity,” Dr. Rieder, a professor of sociology at Barnard College in New York, said in a recent interview. “Jesus wasn’t just an interesting historical figure to King. He saw Jesus as a continuation of the prophets. He has a powerful association with Jesus.”

The President at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast

As he has in the past, President Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast:

 

President Obama has often spoken about the Bible, and he did so again today. From the text:

We come together because we're a people of faith.  We know that faith is something that must be cultivated.  Faith is not a possession.  Faith is a process.

I was struck by the passage that was read earlier from the Book of Hebrews:  “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and He rewards those who diligently seek Him.”  He rewards those who diligently seek Him -- not just for one moment, or one day, but for every moment, and every day.

As Christians, we place our faith in the nail-scarred hands of Jesus Christ.  But so many other Americans also know the close embrace of faith -- Muslims and Jews, Hindus and Sikhs.  And all Americans -- whether religious or secular -- have a deep and abiding faith in this nation.

Recently I had occasion to reflect on the power of faith.  A few weeks ago, during the inauguration, I was blessed to place my hand on the Bibles of two great Americans, two men whose faith still echoes today.  One was the Bible owned by President Abraham Lincoln, and the other, the Bible owned by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  As I prepared to take the sacred oath, I thought about these two men, and I thought of how, in times of joy and pain and uncertainty, they turned to their Bibles to seek the wisdom of God’s word -- and thought of how, for as long as we’ve been a nation, so many of our leaders, our Presidents, and our preachers, our legislators and our jurists have done the same.  Each one faced their own challenges; each one finding in Scripture their own lessons from the Lord.  

In the speech, he also quoted 1 Corinthians 13:12  and Luke 10:27:

 And so my hope is that humility, that that carries over every day, every moment.  While God may reveal His plan to us in portions, the expanse of His plan is for God, and God alone, to understand.  “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.”  Until that moment, until we know, and are fully known, all we can do is live our lives in a Godly way and assume that those we deal with every day, including those in an opposing party, they're groping their way, doing their best, going through the same struggles we're going through.

And in that pursuit, we are blessed with guidance.  God has told us how He wishes for us to spend our days.  His Commandments are there to be followed.  Jesus is there to guide us; the Holy Spirit, to help us.  Love the Lord God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  See in everyone, even in those with whom you disagree most vehemently, the face of God.  For we are all His children.

Obama and Allusion

As mentioned before, it is common for presidents to allude to historic rhetoric, especially in their inaugural addresses.  President Obama did so several times yesterday:

"...that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth."

JFK's 1961 inaugural: "...that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God ... here on earth God's work must truly be our own."

"This generation of Americans has been tested by crises that steeled our resolve and proved our resilience."

JFK's 1961 inaugural: "...that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace."

"Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free. We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together."

A mashup of  Lincoln’s second inaugural – “until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword” -- his 1858 House Divided speech – “I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free” – and Nixon’s 1969 inaugural – “No man can be fully free while his neighbor is not. To go forward at all is to go forward together.”

"My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it -- so long as we seize it together."

Clinton's 1993 inaugural: "Well, my fellow Americans, this is our time. Let us embrace it."

"But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action."

Clinton's 1993 inaugural: Thomas Jefferson believed that to preserve the very foundations of our Nation, we would need dramatic change from time to time.

"That is what will give real meaning to our creed." (The word "creed" appears five times in the address.)

 “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed”  --  Martin Luther King, “I Have a Dream”