On March 28, 1963, over 250,000 people marched to the steps of Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. to hear Martin Luther King, Jr. deliver his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The venue that he selected was significant because President Lincoln was the one to issue the Emancipation Proclamation which declared “all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free”. Lincoln has been the leader most associated with the end of slavery in the United States.
The key point in King’s speech was that one hundred years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, “the Negro is still not free.” He illustrated this by stating that Negroes were crippled by segregation and chains of discrimination, they lived lives of poverty, and were exiled in their own land. Even though slavery had been abolished, they were not truly free because of these injustices they were forced to endure.
To elaborate on these injustices, he used the examples of police brutality and lodging facilities being unwilling to accommodate the weary Negro traveler. He further expanded by stating the mobility of a Negro was limited to ghettos and not everyone having the right to vote.
King used the analogy of coming to Washington, D.C. to “cash a check”. The Negroes had been promised freedom by our government and the government had not honored that promise. He went on to say that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence had promised all men, black and white, “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Therefore, he indicated the Negro people had been written “a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.”
The language of his speech did inspire change for the Negroes. He encouraged them to “demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice” and that there are “great vaults of opportunity” in our nation. He warned that this was just the beginning and the Negro people would not be content with the status quo. Quite honorably, he encouraged his people to not become bitter or “guilty of wrongful deeds” in their struggle for freedom. He realized this fight was to be fought with whites alongside the blacks so he urged his people not to distrust white people.
Many people felt a righteous indignation against racial discrimination after this day. Others felt inspiration and determination in achieving equality and freedom. This march and this speech were crucial points in United States civil rights history. It was less than a year later that President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the 1964 Civil Rights Act which banned discrimination in public facilities and prohibited employment discrimination. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act was enacted to ensure that Negroes had the right to vote and the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968 to remove discrimination in buying and renting of housing.
Martin Luther King, Jr. did inspire a chain of events that improved the quality of life for the Negro people in the United States. I’m sure his words of inspiration would have had a significant impact no matter where they were spoken, but I believe his choice of venue to deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial made a resounding statement of the principles of our great nation and furthered his cause of equality and freedom.
Teri, you wrote a good historical context for King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and drew proper conclusions for the significance of the Lincoln Memorial as the site to give it. Though when Lincoln began his war with the South, he had no intent to free the slaves and would have gotten the South back into the Union even if he did not free any, he grew, as we all must, in his appraisal of the situation and people. He grew to embrace the slaves’ cause as his own, and I don’t think that was just political expediency, as some would accuse him. I admire Lincoln because I think he changed as he grew wiser and understood the plight of the blacks. Not every man or woman would have the courage to change and adapt to new revelation. There would be that whole saving face thing.
ReplyDeleteThat is what embroiled the nation in racial turmoil for so long. Even when many people recognized the evil that was slavery and the evil that was racial discrimination, still alive and well in the ‘60s, there was a social inertia to break. It was hard for some to see and think in a different way. I am sure Martin Luther King Jr. was under no grand allusions that Lincoln was a perfect man and the perfect role model for the Civil Rights Movement; but I think he recognized in Lincoln a man who had the courage to stand against the weight of history, to not be afraid to change even when the future was uncertain. He saw Lincoln as a man of character who was willing to step out and do something of higher moral value for the sake of the country and the sake of a persecuted people. He was flawed, but courageous. So King, he too a flawed man, standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, called for the same kind of change that would further revolutionize the country—the next logical step in search for freedom. Cashing the check meant taking what Lincoln had written and getting the true value of that emancipation in practical everyday living, a life free of discrimination.
Lincoln and King were both initiated a chain of events, as you say, that effected change, and we have the responsibility to act as bravely and as honorably as them.