NEWS ANALYSIS: Causes Right and Left Claim a Part of King’s `Dream’ for Own Legitimacy

c. 2003 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ Forty years ago on Aug. 28, 1963, blacks, whites, Christians and Jews descended on the National Mall for the March on Washington, their day capped with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s now-famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Four decades later, the diversity of faces and voices resonating […]

c. 2003 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Forty years ago on Aug. 28, 1963, blacks, whites, Christians and Jews descended on the National Mall for the March on Washington, their day capped with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s now-famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Four decades later, the diversity of faces and voices resonating with _ and claiming for themselves _ that message has broadened so much that critics all along the ideological spectrum think the range of those linking themselves to the slain civil rights leader has gone too far.


Consider: Just before the march anniversary was marked this year, conservative supporters of suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore compared their cause _ keeping a Ten Commandments monument in a state judicial building _ to King’s encouragement of civil disobedience. And, on the liberal end of the culture war, gay rights activists rejoiced at their participation in this year’s commemorative march on Saturday (Aug. 23).

“Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is no Martin Luther King Jr.,” declared Robert Parham in an editorial on the Baptist Center for Ethics’ Web site, EthicsDaily.com. “Efforts to portray the religious right’s agenda on the Ten Commandments as a kin to the civil rights movement cheapens King’s legacy and veils a conservative Christian agenda.”

A more conservative Christian organization that embraces traditional family values took umbrage at the thought of gay organizations _ waving a 100-foot-long rainbow pride flag _ rallying with others near the Lincoln Memorial where King spoke.

“The Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council strongly opposes the hijacking of the civil rights movement by homosexual activists, and believes that homosexual behavior cannot be equated with such innate characteristics as sex or race,” the council announced.

Neither the linkages to King nor the critics of them surprise longtime and more recent observers of King and his famous speech.

“I think you get both liberals and conservatives using King largely because he is such a powerful symbol in America,” said James H. Cone, author of “Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare.”

“It’s the least of these that King was concerned about and that was true in the African-American community as well, so middle-class blacks are really not the ones that understand King and neither are these other privileged people in society, no matter in what areas they might feel themselves discriminated.”


But King, who was assassinated while in Memphis, Tenn., fighting for the cause of garbage workers, has been and will be the catalyst for a range of new efforts.

This fall, when the current commemorations are just a memory, two of the top names in Christian music, a white musician named tobyMac and a black gospel artist named Kirk Franklin, will come together for a multicity “I Have a Dream _ the Tour.”

They’ll be working with the E.R.A.C.E. Foundation, which stands for Eliminating Racism and Creating Equality. Why did organizers pick this name for the tour?

“I think, quite honestly, it’s because Toby and Kirk, who have had opportunities to work together as individual artists, see that students and people in culture don’t see artists working together across racial lines very often,” said John Maguire, director of the Franklin, Tenn.-based foundation that was started by dc Talk, an interracial group of musicians that included tobyMac.

“They see it as a way to reflect Martin Luther King’s speech.”

The Rev. James Lawson, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles, said he’s “all for” Christian artists commenting on the oneness of the human race, but he doesn’t see the Alabama judge and his compatriots seeking quite the same goal.

“Roy and his followers are theocratic,” Lawson said. “They’re using King’s name because they think there’s some value in using the name in their arguments, not because they support nonviolence or the civil disobedience movement as a way of making law better.”


Sylvia Rhue, director of the Washington-based Equal Partners in Faith, a liberal-leaning network of religious leaders who are supportive of gay rights, said gay groups were invited by organizers to be part of the march commemoration this year.

“It all comes down to are you trying to expand people’s rights or are you trying to limit other people’s rights,” said Rhue, an African-American lesbian who is a documentary producer in Los Angeles. “Those people who want to limit other people’s rights are on the wrong side of justice.”

The Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, wishes Moore would “respect the views of others,” including those who do not see the Ten Commandments as the core of their faith. But he thinks King’s “road map” for seeking tolerance has led to the range of people, including Moore’s supporters, linking King to their causes.

“It’s appropriate for gay and straight, white, black, people of all traditions, even conservative and liberal, to march on and on in celebration of Dr. King’s speech,” he said.

Elizabeth Vander Lei, an English professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., said King’s speech and the related march have been “resonating globally” for years, with Million Man and Million Mom marches on the National Mall and even Chinese students in Tiananmen Square singing “We Shall Overcome.”

The recollection of what the speech was really about has been lost sometimes, even in advertising. Alcatel, a telecommunications company, reshaped King’s message for 2001 television commercials, while an anti-ebonics group placed a 1998 ad in the New York Times that read “I Has a Dream.”


“It really does get distorted in some really interesting ways,” said Vander Lei, who co-authored a scholarly article titled “Martin Luther King Jr’s `I Have a Dream’ in Context.”

While the debate goes on about whether some groups have co-opted King’s “I Have a Dream” message or are simply being creative, perhaps the arguing is beneficial.

“If the argument comes to a point where someone is saying you should not be linked with King for these reasons, guess what? We’re talking about what King did and we’re talking about the civil rights movement and … that makes me happy,” Vander Lei said.

“If they’re not applying any critical thinking to the use of that term, then I would be sad.”

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