SWIERCEK: MLK’s memory distorted for America’s glory

Some commentators have suggested that President Barack Obama's election last November represents the fulfillment of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision.


Such an argument, however, distorts Dr. King's legacy and full vision that advocated for more than just racial equality.


If you ask most people "Who was Dr. King?" some will tell you about the preacher who stood in solidarity with the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott or marched in Selma in 1965. But most will quote four words that have come to define the man:

"I Have a Dream."


People remember that speech. School children learn about it annually on MLK Day. It speaks of fundamental principles of fairness and equality, distilled to its most memorable phrase: "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."


Yet most people's memories of Dr. King suddenly end there. He led a bus boycott, gave a nice speech, called for an end to Jim Crow and was murdered in Memphis five years later.


For them, Dr. King was just the guy that said black people should have equal access to schools and lunch counters.


But the movement that made Dr. King, and not the other way around, was about more than just equal access to a hamburger.


By the mid-1960s, Dr. King articulated a radical vision of America that went beyond desegregation and voting rights, criticizing the interlinked problems of racism, poverty, militarism and materialism. King recognized that civil rights, human rights, peace activism and economic justice were inextricably bound together in the unified struggle for social justice.


But our nation's collective historical memory has a way of misrepresenting or conveniently forgetting the nuances of the past.


Take, for example, the March on Washington for Freedom, where King made his famous speech on Aug. 28, 1963. Americans tend to forget that the March on Washington for Freedom's full name was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. We forget that demand for jobs was a fundamental part of that event.


The last five years of Dr. King's life, when King expressed his complete opposition to racial and economic inequality, and unchecked militarism and materialism, are essentially obscured in the minds of most Americans. If we truly remember Dr. King's life, it is ironic that he received a national holiday and an eventual monument in Washington, D.C.


Eighteen years before Dr. King was vaulted into the pantheon of American heroes, he was one of the most despised men in America.


Before the political right co-opted Dr. King in order to portray him as an opponent of affirmative action and equal opportunity initiatives, they railed against him as a communist insurgent seeking domestic upheaval.


Before the third Monday of January became a federal holiday, the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, suspicious of King's intentions, monitored his every move and communication.

The popular memory of King forgets his broader activism beyond "I Have a Dream" and the hatred and death threats that he received for it.


Three years after that famous speech, King took on housing discrimination and segregation in the urban north and faced violent white mobs that resisted his marches through suburban Chicago.


In a 1967 speech, "Beyond Vietnam," King articulated his firm opposition to the Vietnam War. He argued that "a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." We forget that King linked the struggle for equality and justice at home with the fight against American imperialism abroad.


By the end of his life in 1968, Dr. King's "Poor People's Campaign" began to organize a multiracial army of the poor to march to D.C. and demand economic justice for America's working-class. By the time King fell to an assassin's bullet, his advocacy had earned him countless enemies.


So why is the "I Have a Dream" King remembered while the antiwar and "Poor People's Campaign" King is obscured?

Perhaps acknowledging the confrontational Martin Luther King Jr., who also fought for peace and economic equality, highlights the fact that much of his struggle then is still being fought and remains unresolved today.


Ignoring that King in favor of remembering only the "I Have a Dream" King gives us a redemptive, feel-good story of American progress while overlooking King's unfinished struggle for social justice.


America remains bogged down in foreign wars while spending more than ever on its military. The distance between the richest and poorest Americans has increased exponentially since the 1960s, while access to jobs and higher education remains elusive for those who continue to struggle economically. Meanwhile, black people make up a disproportionate share of those without adequate jobs or housing, particularly because of the recent mortgage meltdown.


Of course we can't deny that our country has made incredible strides in forty years. President Obama is, in part, testament to that progress.

Yet Martin Luther King Jr., and the movement that made him, would not claim that his legacy boiled down solely to the election of one African American to the presidency. Dr. King's vision of social justice was much more than that.


Nic Swiercek is a graduate History major. Reach him at nicswiercek@dailynebraskan.com