I wonder if the Rev. King would wonder what has become of this once mannerly and orderly small town nation. I can't help but think he would have begun, as his wife did, to look for our strengths, our honor and love of nation as one people, not divided by race or class.
Dr. King did help persuade the Federal Government to make welfare the prime help for the poor. He did see segregation of the races curbed, schools opened to all no matter how far the distance. He would have lived to see how both programs have crippled those who have come to rely on the largess of their country – not rely on self, just the opposite. The result is inner city gangs, drugs, crowded housing, crime and thousands of parentless children. A social engineering experiment that went awry because some people thought they understood what was needed, a form of Socialism which destroys the human spirit.
Dr. King’s words ring hollow today…”Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream..." The Dream is dieing from lack of care/respect and love for one’s country and the willingness to fight for and keep freedom; the Dream is dieing because our roots/history are being rewritten; we don’t know who we are. For all his beautiful words and his powerful encouragement, he would have seen the failure that all see, we failed to teach; we have failed to really teach our teachers to teach and we have failed to require them to teach fact and the basics. In our effort to help all, we have become a multicultural, rootless society rather than a cohesive, color blind, class blind strong country. Thanks to a Dream that was lost all too soon to political correctness and the politicians.
For example the “Right” wants to see him as an exponent of a meritocratic race-blind America of individual initiative and reward, the “Left” to discover a commitment to social justice pursued by a powerful government bent on righting historical wrongs which subvert individual success and disguise individual merit, the Right tends to be uncomfortable with his Religious conviction because it is more deeply concerned with the pursuit of justice than process of judgment, the Left tends to be uncomfortable with his religiosity on general principles and so on.
But even if both the Left and the Right would like to claim at least some portion his legacy the fact remains that world view is almost entirely of the “Left”. And that attempts demonstrate otherwise quickly run up against this writings, his works and his associates, and it’s to those views, I think, that you have to look to guess how he might understand present situations.
For instance, to take your example:
“I wonder if the Rev. King would wonder what has become of this once mannerly and orderly small town nation?” I’m reasonably sure based on reading a good deal of ( and good deal about) his opinions that he would have started by replying that he thought this is a highly idealized or at least highly selective version of American history - that such communities appeared “orderly and mannerly” largely because they were highly stratified by race, ethnicity and class, and because they were run largely without outside interference with or oversight of local elites who were generally comfortable with this arrangement.
Needless to say, if I’m correct he’s a dubious icon for most readers here.