See, Pamela Paul, “This 1991 Book Was Stunningly Prescient About Affirmative Action, New York Times, May 25, 2023
Category: Race
See,
Thomas Chatterton Williams, “You Can’t Define Woke; The word is not a viable descriptor for anyone who is critical of the many serious excesses of the left yet remains invested in reaching beyond their own echo chamber, The Atlantic, March 17, 2023 (7:00 a.m. ET).
Thomas Chatterton Williams seems to have been reading my mind.
I’ve been thinking over the last few weeks about how the Democrats have been ceding the ground and issue to the Republicans by not criticizing some of the positions taken by leftist extremists who want to control speech, or cancel professors who express views they disagree with.
Where is the full-throated defense of freedom of speech one might expect to hear from liberal Democrats?
Are they afraid to criticize excesses by their own followers the same way Republicans are afraid to criticize the excesses of Donald Trump?
Is it simply fear of the Internet mob?
What the Democrats are losing is the support they might receive from Republicans or Independents if they made clear that most Democrats don’t agree with these extreme views, which are often lumped together as being “woke”.
Thomas Chatterton Williams points out that the term “woke” is now useless as a tool of argument or persuasion. He calls on us to be more precise in our arguments, which may help us all focus on the real issues.
The Spirit of Voltaire
See,
Sherelle Jacobs, “The West is doomed if it blames all its problems on Evil White Males; ‘Anti-racist’ hyperbole has become a convenient excuse not to properly examine our own history,” The Telegraph, January 30, 2023 (9:00 pm).
Few seem to have the courage to denounce the excesses of “anti-racism”–which tragically and ironically sometimes assume the characteristics of racism itself.
While some in the class of victims of racism may at times obtain important advantages (e.g., academic posts or television news jobs) as a result of anti-racism policies which discriminate on the basis of race, in the long run racism will not be overcome by adopting measues that are racist in themselves.
Members of “the white race” and their ancestors are not the only human beings who can be guilty of racism.
Moreover, it is worth recalling the fact that “race” is not itself a scientific concept.
Sherelle Jacobs of The Telegraph draws attention to ssome of the “anti-racist” excesses that obscure an accurate view of history, and discriminate against others on racist grounds.
She herself, she recounts, was denied an opportunity to speak at a recent conference at her alma mater. She, being of mixed-race background, was prohibited from speaking on account of her “proximity to whiteness”.
Jacobs writes,
We should never deny or downplay the dark side of Western history – nor the strangely double-edged story of Western freedom.
But here’s the thing. The evil “whiteness” stuff is getting out of hand. Everywhere one looks there are excesses. Take the decolonised university courses that seek to purge Dead White Men (the intellectual cousin of the Evil White Male) from the curriculum. Or the obsession with toppling statues of figures such as Cecil Rhodes. That’s before we get onto the full-blown anti-white discrimination. When I attended a colourism workshop at my old university not long ago, mixed race women, including me, were prohibited from speaking on account of our “proximity to whiteness”. Even worse is the trend towards barring white people from black spaces altogether. Two Canadian theatres have sparked an outcry by limiting performances to an “all black-identifying audience”.
As loathsome as racism is and has been in the past, we need to understand that there are many forms of racism, which becomes particularly evident when we look at the wide range of societies in this world and its some eight billion people.
Perhaps we would do well to focus less on the past and more on the present and the future, which we ourselves are responsible for shaping, and to continue our pursuit of a world in which, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., individuals “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”.
The Spirit of Voltaire
George F. Will describes one of the latest university skirmishes with “wokeness”.
George F. Will: “Wokeness in all its self-flattering moral vanity comes for a statue at Princeton,”Washington Post, January 6, 2023 (7:00 a.m. EST);
The madness he describes, of “woke” students demanding this statue be removed or that name removed from a building on the basis not of reason but of their uninformed infantile rage, is a welcome reminder that freedom must be defended not only at the gates against outsiders, but also in the inner sanctums where future leaders are groomed and basic attitudes toward democracy and its essential freedoms are forged.
Who is really at fault when ignorant student mobs demand this or that action by a university administration in subservience to some mindless incantation of a higher cause, like opposing racism?
In the French Revolution, the higher cause was “Reason” and the enemies were the Church, the aristocracy, and those opposed to Reason. Ultimately “enemies” included anyone who disagreed with the zealots. Many heads were chopped off by the new machine called the guillotine.
To be sure, the “woke” themselves are at fault, for it is their obligation to get an education and to free themselves from their own ignorance and prejudices.
But professors are also at fault, to the extent they fail to stand up to the demands of Unreason in their classrooms. They have a duty to foster the development the Enlightenment values of their students, from freedom of expression to the defense of diverse opinions held by individual students.
“Woke” students make their demands from a position of overweening self-righteousness. They demand that they be protected from views that might make them uncomfortable.
But surely it is the duty of the professor to protect all of hus or her students from the stunting intellectual effects of enforced conformity.
Many a professor wants to do just that, but without strong backing from university administration officials they often cannot perform this most essential function of their jobs out of fear that their jobs or prerogatives (e.g., teaching the courses they want to teach) may be adversely affected.
So, in the end, winning on the battlefield of ideas ends up being a question that is decided by university administrators.
How tragic this situation has become, even at our best universities, is revealed by the recent Stanford University administrative guidance on “appropriate” speech.
See,
1) Sheila McClear, “Stanford Releases ‘Harmful Language’ List of Hurtful Words to Eliminate; The Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative seeks to rid Stanford, and perhaps the world, of troubling terms like ‘American’,” Los Angeles Magazine, December 29, 2022;
.
See,
1) Charles Moore, “Christianity’s retreat has left the West vulnerable to harmful new beliefs; Our societies are in a severer muddle, which makes for fertile ground for woke zealotry,” The Telegraph, December 23, 2022 (9:00 pm);
Charles Moore points out how absurd wokery’s obsession with controlling speech is given the other things going on in the world.
See,
1) Megan McArdle, “A fight among historians shows why truth-seeking and activism don’t mix,” Washington Post, August 29, 2022 (7:00 a.m. EDT);
2) James H. Sweet, “IS HISTORY HISTORY? Identity Politics and Teleologies of the Present,” Perspectives on History August 17, 2022;
3) Bret Stephens, “This Is the Other Way That History Ends,” New York Times, August 30, 2022.
Further evidence of the weakening belief in freedom of speech is provided by Megan McArdle, who recounts the latest brouhaha over an article by James H. Sweet, the president of the American Historical Association, who warned against the excesses of “presentism”, an excessive preoccupation with the present and the influences of current beliefs on the writing of history.
His basic argument is that it is a mistake for historians to allow themselves to be overly influenced by current debates and current views of what are right or permissible opinions.
It is distressing to have our attention called to this phenomenon, which one might term the infinite expansion of the present moment, which obscures the realities of the past and perhaps also the potential and some of the possibilities of the future.
One suspects that the phenomena is related to the growth of social media and its extreme focus on the present, and the increasing focus of television media on what is happening at this very moment, with all the excitement of the latest “breaking news”.
What is most disturbing in McArdle’s report is her account of journalists being criticized not for telling the truth, but rather for telling a truth which does not support the conclusions which activists want to support.
We need to build support among the younger generations for freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and the free play of ideas–all ideas. One might start with classic texts, like those of John Stuart Mill, and some history of what advocates of the Enlightenment like Voltaire and the Encyclopedists were pushing for in the eighteenth century.
Indeed, we are in great need of a renaissance of the eighteenth century mind, as its devotion to liberty and freedom of thought has come down to us in the last three centuries.
We have experience with Soviet and Nazi systems of thought control, and other examples on the Left and the Right, and the excesses and crimes to which they have led.
What is called for is a renewed and robust system of civic education, in the schools, in churches and other places of worship, and in colleges and universities at every level and in every corner of the land.
The Spirit of Voltaire
See,
1) Daniel Hannan, “Britain’s strictest headmistress’ is transforming lives by defying the educational blob; With her traditional principles and high expectations, Katharine Birbalsingh is helping to lift kids out of poverty, The Telegraph, May 21, 2022 (5:00pm);
2) Sally Weale, “UK’s ‘strictest headmistress’ fears schools will stop teaching Shakespeare; Katharine Birbalsingh says move to decolonise English curriculum could mean Shakespeare replaced with black and female authors,” The Telegraph, May 22, 2022 (19.24 BST).
Hannan calls attention to a documentary on ITV on Sunday night (May 22), “Britain’s Strictest Headmistress”, which tells the story of Katharine Birbalsingh.
Birbalsingh did not start out as a traditionalist. At Oxford, she joined the Socialist Workers Party.
When she began her teaching career, she went in with all the usual assumptions: schools were underfunded, the biggest obstacle facing non-white kids was structural racism. But she found that her classroom experiences could not sustain those pre-conceptions. The real problem, she came to realise, lay in the attitude of the people who oversaw our schools.
Instead of imparting knowledge, teachers were overseeing child-led discussions. Instead of promoting confidence, they were encouraging victimhood. Instead of upholding the canon, they were seeking out obscure texts on grounds of identity politics. Instead of expecting high standards, they were indulging pupils from under-privileged backgrounds, and thus unintentionally condemning them.
Birbalsingh dreamed of a different kind of school, which she founded in 2014. In 2019, the school’s students had some of the highest scores in the country on national tests.
What is Michaela’s secret? A set of principles that could be made to work in any school: gratitude must be taught; phones banned; competition encouraged; learning teacher-led; national cohesion promoted; high standards expected; adult authority upheld.
The students are from ethnic and national minorities. But they are given the benefits of discipline, high expectations, and exposure to the classics. The results impressed Daniel Hannan, who cites a few examples:
As they walk into lunch, the kids belt out verses that they have memorised – Kipling’s If, Henley’s Invictus, passages from Shakespeare. This is the only time they make a noise inside; there is usually no talking in the corridors – which means no misbehaviour and no bullying.
Over lunch, they are given a topic to talk about. Afterwards, they express their appreciation for someone – a teacher for helping them, another student for making them feel welcome, their mother for always having their uniform ready.
Gratitude is a happier emotion than grievance, and perhaps the most striking feature of Michaela is how cheerful its children are….
Hannan and the documentary make a strong case for using Birbalsingh’s and Michaela’s approach to educating students, in any school.
This may be one way to form and preserve eighteenth century minds.
The Spirit of Voltaire
Douglas Murray has written an interesting column arguing that in the U.K., at least, “diversity” has become the new religion, replacing the older one, Christianity, which he prefers.
See,
Douglas Murray,”Diversity is the new national religion. Woe betide any agnostics; The unnatural hush around Sir David Amess’s murder proves that there are some issues we can simply no longer discuss,” The Telegraph, April 16, 2022 (5:32pm).
Murray, the author of a forthcoming book entitled The War on the West (to be released April 28), writes,
All ages and cultures have their religions. Today Christians around the world celebrate the story of the risen Christ. But whether you are a believing Christian, a cultural Christian or a believer in something or nothing else entirely, one thing should be obvious by now: the Christian tradition no longer dominates British public life. You may celebrate that fact or deplore it, but as all the census and church attendance data shows, it is the case.
It does not follow, however, that ours is an irreligious age. On the contrary our society is deeply religious. It is simply religious about concepts that are different – though often descended from – our earlier belief system. For instance the modern British state’s prioritisation of “tolerance” and “difference” is an inheritance from a Christian ideal. Not least the ideal of equality in the eyes of God.
…
(O)ur society is forced by diktat at every level of public service to bow to the gods of diversity, inclusion and equity. Apply for any public appointment in this country and you will have to demonstrate a commitment to these principles. You will have to explain what you have done to further these religious precepts.
Deviations from the new religious precepts, Murray argues, are harshly punished, in a manner reminiscent of the treatment of earlier blasphemies:
Say anything that appears to go against these precepts of the new faith and you know what will happen. Idiotic obsessions over the rights of small minorities are now fought over as our forebears fought over interpretations of the Eucharist. To watch Labour MPs contorting themselves as they are asked to answer questions like “What is a woman” is to get a glimpse of what it must have been like in previous eras when people were burned at the stake, or avoided being burnt, depending on whether they could use the precise, correct formulation expected of them that year regarding the status of the communion wafer. It is painful to see them struggle. Even more painful that our society seems to demand it. But that is the way with religions. They have their dogmas, and to speak against them is to suffer potentially serious punishment.
The article provides stimulating food for thought and free discussion.
Any difficulty we may have in talking about these issues would seem to support Murray’s argument.
The Spirit of Voltaire
See,
John McWhorter, “I’m With Condoleezza Rice About White Guilt,” New York Times, October 29, 2021.
As someone who was a strong supporter of Martin Luther King, Jr. and racial equality when that was not a popular position to take, and as an educated person who knows something about other countries and about history, I believe that the whole “white guilt” trap is a false path for African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, or anyone else to pursue.
The “white guilt” trap places the emphasis on victimhood, not the triumph of individual self-achievement. It tries to make white people feel personally guilty for the “sins” of their ancestors, who may have been people who in many ways were good people but who lived in an age in which social injustices-and not only those related to race–were commonplace, a part of the social structure of the times.
The Greeks and the Romans lived in ages in which slavery was common. The inhabitants of other states which had been defeated on the battlefield, even Greek city-states, were enslaved by others of the same ethnicity in Athens, Rome, and many other places. By current standards, great injustices were committed. Yet should current-day Greeks and Romans feel guilt over the crimes of their ancestors?
More recently, the Germans who lived during the Third Reich under Hitler (1933-1945) committed abominable crimes, including the extermination of the Jews. Are Germans who were children or not yet born during those years guilty of the sins of their fathers and mothers, or ancestors?
The Question of German Guilt* throws a bright light on the Question of White Guilt in America. Should a child or a descendent of a war criminal or someone guilty of crimes against humanity ever be considered to be guilty of the crimes of their parents or ancestors? Or to bear guilt for those crimes?
Is a German today to be viewed as guilty, as responsible, for the sins of Germans who are dead, when they themselves did not take part in the commission of any crimes?
Do we believe in ethnic guilt? That one may be guilty because of the genes one bears? Of genetic guilt?
Any arguments in favor of such propositions would be preposterous, and also lay the basis for endless ethnic conflict and war.
Those who seek to make whites in America feel guilty for the actions of their forebears, in which they themselves took no part, are prophets of a false path. Following that path, while it may benefit some in the short run (e.g., academic proponents of such theories), will in the end only foster ethnic conflict, and persuade individuals they are victims, instead of focusing on their enormous potential for self-achievement.
Institutions and practices that express current racism should be opposed, and reformed. Programs aimed at helping those particularly disadvantaged by past racism, including racism against Native Indian peoples, should be supported.
But this should be done within a broader framework which does not rely on white guilt for its motivational force.
Social programs to help disadvantaged members of society, including white individuals, should be based on empathy and our shared sense of humanity. In a democracy, they should also be based on the ultimate power of individuals to vote.
Spirit of Voltaire
*See Karl Jaspers, The Question if German Guilt (1947), a translation ofDie Schuldfrage, originally published in German in 1946.
See,
George F. Will, “Attacking ‘merit’ in the name of ‘equity’ is a prescription for mediocrity,” Wahington Post, June 25, 2021 (8:00 a.Opportunity. EDT).
Equity versus Equality of –with the full text and audio of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a Dream” speech on Ugust 28, 1963
In a not so subtle shift, large segments of the Democratic Party appear to back a change in racial policy objectives from “equality of opportunity” to “equity” or equality in results.
This shift has led to developments such as the declaration by the new head of NBC news that 50% of new hires would be from minority groups.
Partly as a result of the national outcry over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the mass demonstrations which followed, including the prominent participation of the Black Lives Matter movement, this shift toward “equity” instead of “equality of opportunity” appears to be reflected in the over-representation of African-Americans in the cable news media, including not only hosts but guests and participants in news discussion programs.
With African-Americans representing only 16% of the national population, one would be hard-pressed to justify the over-representation of African-Americans in the news media on the basis of selection of hosts snd guests on merit.
A Harvard philosophy professor, Michael Sandel, has now published a book (The Tyranny of Merit, September 2020) strongly criticizing the model of excellence or merit upon which the equal opportunity principle, embodied in federal law and the Constitution, has been based, particularly since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965.
Sandell, writing from the leafy and privileged enclave of excellence represented by Harvard and Cambridge, Massachusetts, has launched what is, in essence, an attack on the goals of excellence and the distribution of power and social rewards on the basis of merit.
You have to ask yoursel how much experience Sandell has had living or working in countries which don’t aspire to have a government and institutions based on meritocracy and the pursuit of excellence. We have just had a glimpse for the last four years, under the presidency of Donald Trump, of what that kind of government might look like.
In other countries, like Afghanistan, we have seen the incoherent policies that result in a country governed not by meritocracy, but by clan rivalries and corruption.
The problem is that if excellence and merit are not the standards used to select officials in government and employees in business, what are the standards that will be used?
If race is used as a criterion for selection, in allocating not opportunities but results, how long will it be before those from other races not so favored will rise up in rebellion? What assurance do we have that their rebellion will be constrained by the Constitution and the rule of law?
Maybe it is not the pursuit of excellence or meritocracy per se that is responsible for the racial and social inequities thar exist in society, but a combination of historical, economic, cultural and social forces that have produced the complex reality in which we currently live.
Viewed from this broader perspective, Sandell’s analysis may be unduly reductionistic, the product of too much theory and philosophy and insufficient attention to the concrete realities in which people actually live.
Now, George F. Will, a highly respected and insightful conservative columnist for the Washington Post, has written a powerful critique of Sandel’s book and the whole attack on excellence–as an overriding policy goal for society and universities to follow in allocating not only opportunities but also results, i.e., jobs, power, and other social rewards.
Democrats would do well to listen carefully to Will’s arguments.
For the current empasis in “equity” in the media, including the great over-representation of African-Americans in TV advertising, is likely to have a negative impact on the perceptions and beliefs of white and other citizens and voters who may see, rightly, that their own sons and daughters are being denied the “equality of opportunity” to which under the law and the Constitution, they ought to be entitled.
Democrats and progressives, if they want to avoid election results that would put Trump’s supporters in control of the House and the Senate, if not the presidency, would do well to stick with the vision of racial equality ariculated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his “I have a dream” speech in 1963, when he said,
SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING
Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. (Civil Rights Leader): 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 100 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…
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: …the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in 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.
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.
SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER
Dr. KING: 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.
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time…
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: …to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous 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, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny.
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, when will you be satisfied? We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: for whites only.
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.
SOUNDBITE OF CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE
Dr. KING: This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims’ pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.
SOUNDBITE OF CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
ROBERTS: That is, of course, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his iconic speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28th, 1963.
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–I Have A Dream’ Speech, In Its Entirety
January 18, 20101:00 PM ET
Heard on Talk of the Nation
With link to audi recording