2003 Hein-Fry Lectures

Powerful King 'I have a dream' speech
still unfulfilled, seminary keynoters say

Left to right: Justo Gonzales, J. Paul Rajashekar, Katie Day, Peter Paris.

Forty years later, how do we live out the values so eloquently defined in the Martin Luther King, Jr. "I have a dream" speech? What progress have we made in a multicultural time to come to terms with endemic racism in the U.S. culture? Where do we go from here?

Three presenters took on those questions – and more – during this year's Hein-Fry Lecture Series at LTSP. The consensus? The U.S. hasn't done what it needs to do to live into the dream King powerfully projected on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. August 28, 1963. But the three speakers for the day, theologians Doctors Peter Paris, Justo Gonzales and Katie Day, urged listeners to keep the dream alive by working individually and corporately for change in America. Their presentation was the highlight of the twelfth annual Hein-Fry Lecture Series sponsored by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and its eight seminaries. The objective of the series is to inspire a rich, broad and intense engagement with key theological questions in society, hopefully sparking renewed faith and action. This year's event featured a panel discussion and vigorous exchanges.

The three keynoters each began by tracing their personal or inspired connections to King. Gonzales, a prolific writer who has recently taught theology at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA, recalled serving as an interpreter for Dr. King during a speech the civil rights leader made in Puerto Rico during Gonzales's seminary days. Paris, the Elmer G. Homrighausen Professor of Christian Social Ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary, was in his native Nova Scotia when the speech was delivered, but fell under King's influence when the Canadian later came to Chicago for studies. At the time, King was leading marches to encourage open housing for people of Chicago. Katie Day, Professor of Church and Society at LTSP, said she was 12 years old when the speech was delivered and went to a friend's house to view it because she knew it wouldn't be on television in her own house.

Gonzales, the first presenter and the only one who both met and spoke with King, traced his memories of conversations with King in Puerto Rico in early 1962. He said he felt he had "failed miserably" in his role as interpreter in the face of so many eloquent words "that cascaded in an avalanche of expression…Even if I did not capture the eloquence of his words I was captivated by them." He recalled that King made it clear that slavery, lynchings, and the acts of the Ku Klux Klan did not "stand a chance when faced with the power of truth and right." He described King's dream speech, which occurred later, as "… vast … not just a dream but a vision for the future. It was a dream to liberate all oppressed people everywhere, not just about who sits with whom or who eats with whom, but about respect, love and justice."

Highlights of Justo Gonzales's remarks:

The dream speech of King "traced wrongs that need to be righted. It was a defining moment in history. But 40 years later with heavy hearts and perplexed minds we are asking where the dream went wrong." He said laws were passed that made an impact on the schools, and doors were opened to the world of business, but added that early, hopeful signs of change in race and poverty issues had suffered "a premature death. Some who (early) made it through the open door did not cause it to open wider or make changes in the building. "

The more bipolar racial picture in King's day – black and white – has become increasingly complex since "with races and cultures changing and mixing and becoming more confused – a kind of kaleidoscope."

King's words about a dream helped listeners of faith look beyond the dream to "a vision of the way things are meant to be. Like so many dreams it can shatter when someone awakes and sees realities, but King's words gave a glimpse of the future so clear, so certain that one could stake one's life on it." Because God is part of the vision King laid out, "no devil or presence can undo it." The speech made it clear God's vision is for humankind to be together in the present and the future, and at the same time the remarks eloquently laid bare existing sin and injustice "which will not have the last word."

The reality of present day America is that it is already a multicultural place. "But it is not enough just to be multicultural. It is not just about rights but relationships if the dream is to be real. We look for a society where the contributions of each culture will be accepted and valued." He called for cultures in society "to interact and not just exist side by side."

The familiar terms of "melting pot" and "mosaic" are insufficient to capture the sense of what is best for multicultural America. "A more dynamic paradigm is stew pot, where potatoes, carrots, onions and garlic share their flavors in a way that enables them to each retain their identity." For the King dream to be achieved, the future will require an environment where "races are free to define themselves and none will have the power to define the others. It is not simply tolerance, but truly being open to each other, connected to each other."

King's vision goes beyond the borders of America and surpasses the notion of nationalism. "If someone is oppressed, no one is free," he said. Democracy at home can be undercut by inequities elsewhere. "If a society that enjoys riches closes its borders to the miseries of the world. Will the dream come true? Will we (in the U.S.) be found to share with or resist the great multitude of every nation?"

The second keynoter, Peter Paris, said that after 40 years have passed, the King dream speech "retains enduring significance as the clearest societal vision ever portrayed of what America can be." He said it must be normative for evaluating the nation's progress. In a deliberate and methodical fashion, the Princeton theologian led his audience through the King address, tracing its significance along the way.

Highlights of Peter Paris's remarks:

The speech is deeply rooted in the American dream, not rooted in past accomplishments but future hope.

It predicted continuing unrest and even death if America failed to fulfill the promissory note obligation to provide equality and freedom for all people.

An adequate societal vision must precede the carrying out of effective public practices.

The King speech is a synthesis of moral, religious and political language giving a clear mandate for nonviolent resistance.

The speech influenced such movements as the Black Power initiative, women's liberation, American Indian concerns, farm movements and gay liberation.

"The speech gave America an opportunity for its finest moment in history. Rather than seize the moment the nation became a context for backlash." He cited church bombings such as one that claimed the lives of four children in Birmingham, AL, a series of tragic assassinations including King's, and political actions or inaction ranging from benign neglect about issues of race to opposing affirmative action on many fronts.

Today, 40 years after the dream speech, a disproportionate number of African Americans "live in poverty, prisons, wait on death row, suffer from AIDS, live in poor health, endure high unemployment and early mortality rates, and low education," making them members of a permanent underclass in America.

America was "not ready" for the vision King imparted, and has not been prepared to use its vast resources to bring about a "lasting cure for the racist malignancy that threatens the lives of millions at home and abroad." He urged the seminary audience to "seek political programs and public policies to bring about an actual vision" on the American scene.

The terms "multiculturalism" and "pluralism" have had the effect of "diluting" the issue of racism and the kind of vision King had that calls for the sons of slaves and slave owners to be able to live together in peace and harmony.

The King speech did not enunciate abstract ideas but dealt with the specific and particular. King described issues that, if they could be solved, would make America "an exemplar of moral and political values to the rest of the world." Instead, Americans frequently are made to feel uncomfortable by particular racial episodes in its history.

Paris said he believes it is "unclear" whether America will come to terms with its history and live out the vision of King's dream. "The nation has not apologized for three centuries of slavery and another century of second class citizenship" for African Americans.

Highlights of Katie Day's address:

If the march on Washington took place today King and the rest of us would be viewing a different demographic scene. There would be "many more older people, grayer, more who are richer and more who are poorer. Our society is more mobile, a fifth of us move each year. We have more college-educated people and more who are poorly educated. We are more urban, and we look at family structures differently. Our lifestyles and sexual options are more diverse." She said when King made his speech, five percent of the culture was foreign born and the figure more recently is 29 percent. While diversity once meant an essentially black and white segmentation of U.S. society, the tapestry now includes Cuban, Salvadoran, Russian, Dominican, Middle-Eastern and Asian faces.

King "spoke to a grandiose inner faith community." Forty years later the faith community would include impressive numbers who worship in mosques, Buddhist temples and Latino congregations.

Today's diversity is "messy, myriad" and features "cultures that are overlapping. The cultures have different layers and subcultures that are dynamic, complex, changing. It is a challenge to sort it all out."

The census bureau has never used the same categories two times in a row to define racial makeup in the U.S. The categories decades ago were "White, Negro and Indian." After a flood of immigrants, Jews and Italians were introduced. Not until 1980 was Hispanic a category. The list most recently included such terms as Asian American and Pacific Islander. Sometimes in this context the tendency has been by those in power to see white as "pure" and black as "contaminated." The census challenge is to track changes in demographic groups. And if people define their own groups the census list could become so diluted as to make tracking difficult. Such categories "are always changing and highly contested. Who gets identified? Who decides? How will it make sense?"

She showed a photograph of two chieftains in Panama who had converted to Christianity and then been photographed in shirts and ties. "What's wrong with this picture? They suffered a loss of identity and became victims of cultural imperialism, part of a subculture that had melted into a dominant culture." She compared the experience to a naturalization ceremony in which a new American citizen had been able to testify that he was proud "both to be an American and a Sri Lankan."

She warned against adopting a vision of pluralism that assumes the playing field for all demographic groups is level. "Inequalities persist. Half of African Americans are born into poverty. Hate crimes in 2002 were perpetrated against 12,000 victims in America, half on the basis of race and half on the basis of religion. Intolerance for Muslims has recently spiked."

In a time when many groups are competing for access, resources and power, tolerance sometimes goes away, leading to a kind of cacophony rather than harmony. "We need a new social plan."

She called for a model of "dynamic multiculturalism" where diverse peoples "actively engage one another." In his speech, King warned that the "new militancy, which has engulfed the Negro community, must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers have come to realize that their destiny is tied up in our destiny." "Our destiny is tied up with each other," she said. "It is a vision we must move toward more strongly." A core value in the Kingdom of God is not simply tolerance, but unity and love for all people.

Justice and love often involve some kind of compromise with sin, making the best approximate moves in society to be what God calls us to be. Justice is how we express love to a stranger.

The best model for a dynamic multicultural society is the biblical image of body rather than mosaic or melting pot. The model gives each part of the body an identity and integrity. The body doesn't function unless its parts work together.

She identified four challenges: 1) Work to understand one another. Make efforts to look outside of yourself to build new kinds of relationships. 2) Realize that the majority of whites do not believe they need to extend themselves further to help minorities because they believe equal opportunity already exists. Address such people about the reality of inequalities. 3) Encourage the religious communities you are a part of to find the moral fiber to transcend their own insularity. Help them realize how much multicultural engagement is rooted in their faith commitment to bring about just relationships. 4) If North America is identified as a multicultural island, what does it mean to participate in the global community. "We can't be isolationist," she warned. "The body (of Christ) is not contained (only) within our national borders. What will this kind of global engagement look like?"

She encouraged believers to become involved personally in living out the vision of King's dream. "Students at the heart of the resistance" in the South became so immersed in the effort that they continued undeterred after four of their numbers were killed. "It changed the rest of their lives, their politics and lifestyles," she said.