Living Cities staff reflect on Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches and writing

1. Ben Hecht
Ihave realized that I have been one of those White Americans, truly believing that my
race-neutral approach and earnest commitment to ‘fair play and steady growth towards a
middle-class Utopia’ would actually work. It doesn’t and hasn’t even through all of the
years that I was sincerely hoping that it would. On this celebration of Martin Luther King,
Jr.’s 89th birthday, I am optimistic about the growing number of white people and leaders,
like myself, who finally are realizing that a ‘sincere commitment to justice’ requires much
more. It requires you to take off your rose colored glasses, admit your own complicity in
this deception and to run, don’t walk, to make up for lost time.

2. Joan Springs
When I read the passages, as well as most of Dr. King’s spoken words I’m reminded how far
we’ve come and yet how much further we must go in order to fully entrench equality across the
board. The problem of equality spans across not only our country but basically across the world
and although we’re not going to be able to make a worldwide change at this time, we can attempt to
bring about some change in our country. Beginning within our own communities, we as a whole
need to continue bringing about awareness to those not already supporting that equal justice for
blacks would in turn bring about inclusive economic growth, resulting in gains for all, white, black,
Native people, etc.
On this year’s celebration of Dr. King’s birth I am personally thoughtful as to how I as an individual
can make an impact, a change, which would move this work forward and make life better for many
people who deserve to be on an equal playing field.

3. Shanee Helfer
As a third generation Holocaust survivor, I know that the reason my family and I exist today is
because there were the few who broke their silence and brought the majority to realize "we must
speak" as Dr. King says in his speech. All movements begin with the few and it is in the power of
people, love and words that movements can sustain themselves and grow to become a majority
who change the future for people, community and nations.
I carry with me the responsibility to speak in order to ensure the oppression my family was saved
from and liberty we have been given does not end with us. Rather it is my voice and the voices that
join me who become the continuation of this movement to ensure the liberty I have is provided to
all. It is my responsibility to not only speak but to also bring along those who are uncertain if they
should speak.
I speak as an immigrant. I speak as a white woman. I speak because I know that a few voices can
become a movement speaking out and taking action against oppression and creating liberty for all
people of our nation and world.

4. LivingCitiesTeam Member
Often times, Dr. King’s speeches and writing are mischaracterized and he is made out to
be a rhetorical teddy bear of sorts. In a lot of ways, his legacy has been whitewashed, and
his perceived pacifism is used to silence people of color that deviate from respectability
when addressing white supremacy. I think [Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or
Community] amongst a lot more of his writing and sermons does away with that erroneous
notion. It is a brutal, bold and honest indictment of America that if you’re paying attention,
was really not unusual for him. In another one of his most important writing, Letter from a
Birmingham Jail, Dr. King states "We know through painful experience that freedom is never
voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."
Consideration of his commitment to non-violent resistance is often abbreviated to just non-
violence. Let us always remember that Dr. King was a revolutionary and the core of his work
was resistance.

5. Joseph Sutkowi
Ifell in love with Detroit in 2008 in a sociology course on the city’s history. For three years in college and five years
after, much of my academic and professional life aimed at improving conditions in the city through community
development, physical improvements, the arts and education, and by exposing middle class millennials to the city. If
the city improved, eventually, slowly, that would serve all of the city’s residents. The rising tide would be enough.
But the rise was of two Detroits - a growing and gentrifying White midtown and downtown, and a still struggling
periphery. The rising tide theory is decidedly disproven. But it was leaders here (and by “leaders” I imply more than
just title or rank) that have helped me realize not just the importance but the imperative of working specifically toward
outcomes for people of color. Midtown and downtown weren’t enough. A career focused on combating poverty and
building opportunity for mobility writ large is not enough. We must address race.
I believed in the middle-class utopia that Dr. King warned against 51 years ago. I thought I was an ally - that I was on
the same team, but in reality I was sitting on the bench. He had warned three years before that the contented “white
moderate” was a bigger stumbling block to justice than the KKK. That was me. Now it’s not.
“Over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the
regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s
Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a
negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.” - Letter from
Birmingham City Jail (1963)
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6. Jess Fontaine
On “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community.”
This is the root of every white “ah-ha” moment. Advantages such as support for
start retirement funds, and the security of senior care are all assumptions for
Americans. However, the foundation and capacity of these advantages are
wealth, the financial margins generated over generations within (specifically
absence of disadvantage leads young, white generations to assume their
circumstance – if they are treated fairly at their start, everyone must also be
their own starts. They then see the “difference in results” as “difference in
MLK’s “comfortable vanity,” seeing people of color as people who made different
different effort resulting in their current economic status.
When whites realize their inherited wealth and the role it has played in their
variable of the equation – that we all start the same – and opens the gates for a
their well-intentioned beliefs in racial justice as a fantasy hindering the hope for

7. Jeff Raderstrong
The “Our God Marching” speech has one of my favorite exchanges between Dr. King and his congregation. At the end,
there is a call and response of “How long? Not long” in which King encourages people to not give up the fight, because the
justice they seek will be upon them soon. While invigorating, this exchange has always contained a conflicting message for
me. King is saying that racial justice is near, yet we know that over 40 years after this speech, the work continues. He also
integrates one of my favorite quotes into this call and response, saying that justice is near, because the arc of the moral
universe is long, but it bends towards justice. One could read this and think King was telling us--don't worry, this will all work
itself out.
But I think taking the question of “How long?” in conjunction with the opening anecdote of the woman who chose not to take
a ride because “my feets is tired but my soul is rested,” makes me wonder if King wasn’t talking about time in the corporeal
sense, but instead in the absolute moral sense of desired end point. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it does bend
toward justice, because justice is the moral destination. How long? as a question isn’t so much about the time it takes, but
rather, the ultimate aim of the journey. Like the woman walking with her soul rested, her journey is secondary to her
destination. She has justice on her side, so the journey can be as long as it needs to be. Because she lives the values she
seeks, she has already reached her destination in her soul.
So, I think “How long? Not long” is at the same time a brilliant acknowledgement of the struggle that King’s congregation
faced, that we face, but also the recognition that the struggle has already been won if we can live in justice regardless of
what others will do. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work to bend the arc faster, and make the distance shorter, and offer
tired women a ride regardless of how rested their soul is, but that we can be energized knowing our destination is there,
waiting for us. With that knowledge, the longest journey doesn’t seem that long.

8. MarlonWilliams
My reflection to Dr. King’s pieces takes me to the “I Wanna Be Ready” section of Alvin Ailey’s dance performance
Revelations (Also, I recommend that everyone watch the full Revelations performance if you ever need food for your
soul.)
My quick reflections and this performance, Dr. King’s legacy and continuing the movement towards racial equity.
• Core Strength: This piece is an impressive display of core strength serving as the foundation and re-centering
element of the dancers movements. The opening sequence reminds me of how our core strength and values is
what allows us to extend outwards and to rise up with confidence, persistence and grace.
• Re-Centering: Similarly, in moments when the dancers movements retreat, they come back to that core
strength, curling inward to reground, before shifting the trajectory of motion back outward and forward. Dr. King
stated that the "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."”. These movements remind
me that the journey has and continues to be long, that we get tired or pushed back along the way, but it is the
core strength of our values and vision that allows us to persist and move forward.
• Urgency of the Work: The lyrics of the song (“I want to be ready”) provide a powerful context for the movements.
The words ask us to reflect on what can we do in our work and life today to push and pull ourselves towards a
world of greater equity. The lyrics and the lyrical motion of the dancer speaks to the urgency of contemporary
action, the immediacy of the now that is needed in each of our personal journey to arrive with “my feets is tired
but my soul is rested.”
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9. Matt Baer
When I read the line from “A Time to Break the Silence:” “Peace and civil rights don’t mix,” and the
questions Dr. King received about whether focusing on ending the war was really the concern of a civil
rights leader… it makes me think about the perceived/imagined conflict some see today between the
contemporary civil rights issues of our time and looming global issues like nuclear deterrence, income
inequality, etc. In political terms, we hear this as the supposed struggle within liberalism… “interest
group politics” vs. “broader economic issues everyone can relate to.” Democrats supposedly lose
elections because they pursue the former at the expense of the latter. I know I’ve been guilty of this
kind of thinking… it’s a convenient explanation for things sometimes.
Dr. King gives us the right answer to this puzzle: that these visions and values are not in opposition,
but are part of the same struggle. “In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly,
affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can
never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be... This is the inter-related structure of
reality.” Our liberations are truly bound together.
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10. Nadia Owusu
Here’s a quote from a letter that Dr. King wrote to his wife Coretta:
"I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic. And yet I am
not so opposed to capitalism that I have failed to see its relative merits. It started out with a noble and high
motive, to block the trade monopolies of nobles, but like most human systems it falls victim to the very thing it
was revolting against. So today capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It has brought about a system that takes
necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes."
As is often the case with great Black leaders, Dr. King’s legacy is often whitewashed. We rarely acknowledge
that, at the time, he was considered by many to be dangerous. The FBI looked for dirt on him and harassed him
and his family. The media made of him a villain.
Today, we talk about him in warm and fuzzy terms, but the truth is that he was a radical. He opposed the War in
Vietnam as dangerous militarism and imperialism. He called for a “radical redistribution of economic and political
power.” When he said that he opposed capitalism, he was naming the reality that systems are not neutral. They
are imbued with the values of the people who created them and who power them. Still, today, we have as a
nation been largely unwilling to have a conversation about how to make capitalism inclusive and ‘useful.’ I believe
that honoring Dr. King should include a more honest and thoughtful wrestling with his ideas, even the ones that
make us uncomfortable. We cannot talk about his Dream without talking about what the man himself believed it
would take to make it real.
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