King's Dream: The Legacy of Martin Luther King s \ by Eric J. Sundquist

King's Dream: The Legacy of Martin Luther King s \ Reviews

• 
  robin friedman

  Martin Luther King, Jr., And The American Dream
  
  In his speech delivered at the Lincoln Memorial during the August 28, 1963, March on Washington, Dr. Martin Luther King inspired the nation with his words "I have a dream." King's speech has been described as the best political speech of the Twentieth Century. High school students are able to identify the source of the phrase "I have a dream" much more consistently than they are able to identify the opening words of the Gettysburg Address or the Declaration of Independence. In his stunning and eloquent language, King disregarded the final third of the prepared text of his speech and spoke from his heart. As King himself latter recounted the origin of the speech:
  
  "I started out reading the speech ... all of a sudden this thing came out of me that I have used - I'd used it many times before, that thing about `I have a dream' - and I just felt that I wanted to use it here. I don't know why, I hadn't thought about it before the speech." (Quoted in Sundquist, p. 14)
  
  Eric Sundquist's recent book "King's Dream" (2009) is a meditation on this, the most famous speech of Martin Luther King. The goal of the study is to help understand the nature of King's dream and its continuing vitality. As with most writing of depth, King's speech has been appropriated for many purposes. With time and with the speech's iconic character, it has been commercialized and too-often trivialized and sentimentalized. It is a worthy goal to take a close look at the speech. Sundquist does not offer a line-by-line commentary on King's words, although such an approach might prove useful in another book. Rather, Sundquist tries to place King's speech in context by reading the text and by moving both forward and back to discuss its historical and cultural significance. (Introduction, p. 12) Sundquist is the UCLA Foundation Professor of Literature, and he has written widely on American literature and culture.
  
  The best way to read this book is to begin with Sundquist's introduction and then to turn to the text of King's speech itself, which is given as an Appendix to the book. This approach will allow the reader to focus closely on King's speech as a whole before turning to Sundquist's discussion. In this way, the reader may think through some of the poetical and important thoughts of King, both those in the "I have a dream" section of the speech and earlier. Some of the phrases and themes in the speech that Sundquist explores are as follows.
  
  From the prepared text:
  
  "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."
  
  "We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now....
  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."
  
  "Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred."
  
  From the "I have a dream" section of the speech:
  
  "I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream."
  
  "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 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."
  
  "With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood."
  
  "My country `tis of the sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. .... And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true."
  
  "Free at last! Free at last!
  Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.!"
  
  Sundquist elucidates these and other words on the speech by, among other ways, comparing them to other speeches of Dr. King, before and after this famous speech, by comparing them to other seminal American documents and events, by discussing the speech in the context of the pending Civil Rights legislation and the continued pattern of violence, (North and South), and by exploring various responses to and interpretations of the speech. Sundquist uses the famous "four little children" section of the speech to explore the involved and difficult question of King's attitude to affirmative action and its basis. Sundquist encourages the reader to think through the nature of King's dream as it stood in 1963 and as it has evolved with time.
  
  In my view, King spoke both for the rights of black American's and for the American dream of equal rights for all. King saw black civil rights as integral to America. He vision does not reject the American dream but accepts and amplifies upon it. King spoke of brotherhood and love among all races and all people. This is a highly important ideal that still needs to be realized and fleshed out. For King the ideal was not inconsistent with race consciousness on certain matters. King spoke with passion and with religious fervor. His speech is pervaded by Biblical allusions. His speech captures the immediacy of a moment with learning, poetic beauty and love. King's speech has become iconic because it expounded and amplified upon the American dream. He had the rare gift of articulating a shared vision. Sundquist's book helped me to think about King's great speech.
  
  Robin Friedman
• 
  Nick

  I expected to like this book much more than I did. MLK's speech is probably the best speech of the 20th Century, and I use it in my coaching and teaching and learn something from it almost every time I watch it again. I have the speech virtually memorized. So I was thrilled to see a book all about the history surrounding the speech. Unfortunately, the book is impressionistic where it should be precise. It meanders through times before and after the speech, picking up an idea here, a thought there, without attempting to do anything more than create a general sense of the context of the speech. For the general reader who knows little about the times or King, the book might fill in some gaps, but I imagine it would be confusing as well, since it hops around history with little regard for the way events build on one another. This is not the definitive study of MLK, his speech, or the times.
• 
  Eric

  This work gives good historical context to King's I Have A Dream speech. Especially good is the chapter discussing King's belief in direct nonviolent action/Gandhian satyagraha/"soul force" and the chapter dismantling the modern argument that King would not have supported affirmative action.
  
  I find the author's name especially attractive for some reason as well.
• 
  johnny

  In an effort to keep educating myself on important people in history, I decided to pick up KING’S DREAM by Eric J. Sundquist. The writing was definitely scholarly and contained big words my little brain had to look up. But in general I enjoyed learning more about MLK. This book was mainly an analysis on King’s speeches and the themes that were present in most of them: tying back to Christianity and the Founding Fathers.
  
  It also had the speech delivered at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.
• 
  Ron

  This is the story of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech given at the March on Washington, a political gathering of 250,00-350,000 blacks and whites on August 28, 1963 with the audience listening and applauding the speakers of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement as they made their voices heard to the Congress of the United States in session and telling the congress and the world what the Afro-Americans in the crowd (20-25% of the audience was white) wanted from white America. Freedom Now! The history of the black man has been one of the most egregious evils of America since the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. As the United States grew from a strictly agricultural community to one of mixed agriculture and industrial society in the 1800’s, slavery in the Southern States proliferated and it was not until Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 that slavery was abolished. But slavery was abolished in name only. During the reconstruction period the Negro was given the vote and elected to some political offices in the South. This lasted only until Reconstruction was ended and the white man in the south again took control of the political offices, the schools and the banks and the Negro was once again at the bottom of the food table. It was the 1950’s before the Afro-Americans began to demand their rights. After M L King Jr and a determined Montgomery, Alabama populace demanded and won equal rights to bus transportation that the Black man in the South began forming into groups to push for voting rights and integrated schools that the movement surged and Martin Luther King became one of the dominant leaders for civil rights. The March on Washington followed and became a high water mark for the Black Man. King was the son of a minister and had graduated with a Doctorate in the Divinity School of Boston University. He had learned to speak to large audiences and he had a special talent for speaking to the people to gain their trust and instill in them their natural rights as Americans to have the freedoms that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence gave all men. Combined with the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln on July first, 1863, King was able to interweave a commanding speech that brought the crowd to an exhilaration that pleaded with King to continue demanding the freedom granted all men of the US and to demand it now. He used all the talents of his speech making weaving Negro spirituals with the National Anthem and America, the Beautiful and poetry from Langston Hughes and the words of freedom that made Abraham Lincoln the man who freed the blacks. The speech has been recorded as the most important speech in the 20th century by Americans and recognized the world over. Freedom Now! Four Stars
• 
  James Klagge

  I bought this last week when we visited the new MLK monument on the mall in DC. It is well worth visiting. The book offers background and context to the dream speech--especially its language and imagery. Like the blues singers who recycle lyrics and tunes, MLK may not have been the most original thinker, but he was likely the greatest wordsmith in US history, and likely the greatest motivational speaker of the 20th Century.
• 
  Laura Lynch

  "King’s Dream" analyzes the pivotal speech and the life of MLK. The book covered topics addressed before with an emphasis of course on King than Lincoln, music and in particular the song "My Country". The flow was not fluid but points were often circled back to. I found the reading a bit slow but still finished the book.
• 
  Heather

  I wish there was a "I gave up" choice for your reading status. I was expecting a biography with narrative, and instead was reading a scholarly analysis of the Dream speech. I just couldn't hang with it at this point in my life. Blurg.
• 
  Chris

  This was very insightful!