Joseph Sobran Examines Martin Luther King's Dream -- 40 Years Later

It’s now 40 years since Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech, the highlight of the 1963 March on Washington. Today the speech is widely regarded as one of the great orations of the twentieth century, but even then I found it embarrassing, and I haven’t changed my mind.

In August 1963 I was about to begin my senior year in high school. My political views were fairly liberal; I barely knew what a conservative was. I sympathized broadly with King and the civil rights movement.

But I was also reading Shakespeare and other English classics, and I rubbed my eyes when people praised King’s speech as “eloquent.” It struck me as empty, gauche grandiloquence. When he said he dreamed of an America where his children would be judged “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” I winced.

Even then I knew that race is more than skin color. It includes ingrained behavior patterns, which differ from race to race. Only a false naivety pretends not to notice them. They show up, for example, in rates of violent crime and other aberrant conduct. Chinese people aren’t white, but whites aren’t afraid to go into Chinese neighborhoods. It’s long past time for liberals to get real about this, but an absurd liberal etiquette still inhibits public discussion of racial problems. We’re supposed to talk as if everything is Whitey’s fault.

As for “the content of their character” — the most famous phrase King ever coined — it’s awkward English, unidiomatic. It’s odd to speak of character as having “content.” Why not just say, “not by their color, but by their character”?

The fact is that color can sometimes be a rough index of character. Ideally we should judge people individually, and we do when we can, but when you’re facing a stranger you may not have time to do a thorough character study. His race never justifies you in doing him wrong, but it may cause you to be reasonably wary, even if you’re a liberal.

Is this a defense of prejudice? Not exactly. It’s a defense of some common-sense empirical conclusions that liberals prefer to call prejudices. Liberal etiquette dictates, even after 9/11, that airport security people treat little white grandmothers with as much suspicion as they do young Arab males. After all, we don’t really know the content of Granny’s character, do we?

By 1963 my ardor for the civil rights movement was already waning. I vaguely felt that the lunch-counter sit-ins were going too far. It was one thing to protest state discrimination, but another to encroach on private property and freedom of association. My own self-respect taught me not to go where I wasn’t wanted. If people chose to exclude me from their property, I respected their right to do so.

Where would men like King draw the line? Nowhere, apparently. I wasn’t surprised, years later, when even his sympathetic biographers finally acknowledged King’s Marxist views and Communist associates. For years I’d been told by liberals that rumors of King’s leftism were “McCarthyite.”

Later we learned more about the content of King’s character. His doctoral thesis was at least partly a feat of plagiarism. He was an insatiable adulterer who, according to a close friend, had spent the night before his murder in bed with two women.

Now I’m willing to cut a man some slack. A celebrity who spends much of his time on the road, with women throwing themselves at him, is bound to face frequent temptations most men are spared (or would envy). Even a clergyman might succumb now and then.

But King seems to have regarded enjoying the favors of bonus women as part of his job description. He traded on his prestige as one of America’s most famous ministers, and, like John Kennedy and Bill Clinton, he involved those around him in the corruption of covering up for him. Yet he kept putting his whole movement at risk with his scandalous personal life.

All in all, I’ve come to regard King as a rather repulsive character, peddling a “dream” that was only a fantasy even he didn’t really believe in. If others want to idolize him, let them. But it’s one thing to excuse his faults. It’s another to hold him up as a national hero, complete with his own holiday.

Sobran makes some points, but makes them poorly. In dissecting King's "I have a dream" speech, he comes off as a mincing schoolmarm, and perhaps more than a bit jealous. I mean, what speech of Sobran's has had such an impact?

Verdict: unhelpful, and adds nothing that hasn't been more pungently expressed numerous times before. Not one of Sobran's best.

The problem I have with people who glorify King and his "non-violent" act is that they conveniently forget that he was protected by hundreds of US troops and National Guardsmen on orders from Kennedy and Johnson, and hundreds of white liberals joined in the marches. Now its taught that Rosa Parks marched practically all alone. Real changes came about only after the 1968 riots, and the blackmail has continued ever since. Now everyone thinks King brought about these changes all by the power of his speech making. The fact that he favored white women as sex partners is also ignored. I guess "history is a lie agreed upon", as Napolean said.

In my opinion there are plenty of black people in history more worthy of a national holiday than MLK. he attained his "Sainthood" status the same way JFK did -assassination.
Also have pondered why, of all people to have as "leaders" and "spokespersons" they have Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and their ilk and have concluded that its because they are the ones chosen and propped up by the liberal, elite, white establishment for them.
If Colin Powell or Clarence Thomas were assassinated today, would they become "Sanctified"? I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen because neither of them "preach" the politics of victimization, the ONLY politics acceptable with the white liberal establishment.

Succinct, to the point, and truthfull.

Sure to anger many who will go round the bend with claims of racism.

While working on his dissertation for his doctoral degree at
Boston University, he heavily plagiarized from another author who
had done research on a subject similar to King's. An academic committee
later found that over half of King's work was plagiarized, yet would not
revoke his doctorate. King was dead by this time, and the committee ruled that revoking the title would serve no purpose. It was also discovered that King's famous I HAVE A DREAM speech was also not his own. He stole
it from a sermon by Archibald Carey, a popular black preacher in the 1950s.

Sound familiar?

One of King's closest friends, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, wrote a
book in 1989 in which he talked about King's obsession with
white prostitutes. King would often use church donations to
have drunken sex parties, where he would hire two to three
white prostitutes, occasionally beating them brutally. This
has also been reported by the FBI agents who monitored King.
King was married with four children.

I will tell you now,You will not find
a friend say thiss about Joe Sobran

Sobran sounds like a very little man. Something happened to him somewhere between his being fired from National Review and the attack on his relative. Everything he writes now drips with bitterness and bile.

Sorry, but in the case of blacks and the situation they faced in America in 1960, that kind of a statement is idiotic. When "free association" means you can't walk into any of the stores in the town, something has to give, period.

If others want to idolize him, let them. But it’s one thing to excuse his faults. It’s another to hold him up as a national hero, complete with his own holiday.

BUMP

FMCDH

"When "free association" means you can't walk into any of the stores in the town, something has to give, period."

Something did give: our supposedly inviolable rights to do with our property as we see fit. We will regret this for eons to come.

Carolyn

Hello thathamiltonwoman, retract the claws. Do you know Joe personally? I doubt it, for if you did, you would know that Mr. Sobran is a kind and honorable man. Why do you think he's so full of bile? I think your bigoted post and the fact that it remains uncensored is what's shocking to me. Something must have happened to you somewhere between Sobran and MLK. I suggest you take care of your own drippings and clean up after yourself. Bile is so repulsive. breathe deep and count ...

Claws? All I said is that everything Sobran writes now is bitter. Read anything on his web site for the last year. He seems to hate everything. The man is talented but he sounds like a crank.

the attack on his relative ...

Was a relative of Joseph Sobran a victim of a crime? I am not aware of this. Undoubtedly, being fired from National Review affected him. He is among those who put his faith in William F. Buckley, Jr., and found that the charming wit on "Firing Line" might be a man of two personalities.

thathamiltonwoman, you're free to read what you want. Take it sugar-coated if you like. If you don't like Sobran's writings, don't read them. And if you do read his writings, at least contribute some thought to the topic and not just your misguided impression of the man's character. How exactly did you come to the conclusion that Sobran is a 'small man' anyway? C'mon.

This is false. It was not just a question of private property. There were state laws requiring segregation.

It was also discovered that King's famous I HAVE A DREAM speech was also not his own. He stole it from a sermon by Archibald Carey, a popular black preacher in the 1950s.

You leave out an important fact. Archibald Carey delivered his "Let Freedom Ring" speech (as he called his version of it) at the 1952 Republican convention, among other places.

It's really not a bad speech, no matter what Sobran says.

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