King’s powerful plea for equal rights has resonated with Americans ever since, in no small part because his message was wrapped in an enlightened patriotism. He understood that the best way to fight bigotry was by returning to the vision of universal human dignity the American Founders articulated in our nation’s founding documents.
In 1963, African Americans faced intense oppression. Segregation laws and widespread racial prejudice denied them equal opportunity. America clearly wasn’t living up to the Founders’ ideal of human equality, so it’s easy to understand why many black Americans felt alienated from their country and wanted revolutionary change.
King, however, did not repudiate his American heritage. If anything, he clung more closely to it.
At the Lincoln Memorial, he said:
In King’s mind, the solution to the injustices of American life could be discovered right in the very documents that birthed our country. King wanted to extend the same benefits of citizenship to African Americans who had been excluded from them for so long. He “refuse[d] to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.”
King believed that by respecting one another as equals in citizenship, both white and black Americans could work together to fulfill the promises of the founding.
There is a lot that divides Americans today. But there is so much more that unites us. By laying claim to our nation’s founding principles, King showed Americans today how we can reinvigorate citizenship by living up to the promises at the heart of the American Founding.
