MLK Day

I think one must view Martin Luther King not just as a great civil rights leader, but as one in the pantheon of great Americans who defined and fought for freedom in the context of the American nation. You start with Madison and/or Jefferson (not being an historian, I don't know which to emphasize) making the bold declaration that the people of a country can write the social compact upon which its laws will be based, then Lincoln defining America as the land of government of, by, and for the people, and then King holding modern society to these ideals and proclaiming that the nation is not free until all of its people are free. Everyone remembers the "I have a dream" part of the I Have a Dream speech (God, I hope everyone does), but my favorite part is at the beginning, where King explicitly draws a line from the founders to Lincoln to the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial:

"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."

The whole speech is here:

Happy MLK Day.