Martin Luther King's 1963 still reverberates

Thanks to NPR, I caught a replay of Martin Luther King's Aug. 28, 1963, "I Have a Dream" speech while I was in the car. It was part of an NPR program's coverage of the  MLK Holiday. At the end of my short trip, I sat there, mesmerized, and listened to the iconic speech to the very end.

A day before America inaugurates a new president who is known for his accomplished speechmaking, it's instructive to hear again or read again King's most famous address. By any rhetorical standard, it's a remarkable speech, filled with vivid language and sharp, instructive metaphors. Consider this short paragraph from the speech: After saying that black America had come to Washington to cash a check for the guarantees of freedom and opportunity promised in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, King says, "But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity in this nation. And so we've come to cash this check, a check that gives us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice."

Nobody, including Barack Obama, makes speeches that rich and evocative any more. Few in history ever have. Even without its ending flourish with its repeated chant of "I have a dream," King's speech would be recognized as a powerful call for civil rights and a model of effective rhetoric. He challenged a nation to live up to its promises and, more important, to recognize that those promises have been denied to a large portion of the population.

His rhetorical style honed in the pulpit of churches in Alabama and Georgia, King borrowed the phrases of  the church, quoting the prophet Amos that "justice will roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream" and the prophet Isaiah's promise that mountains will be laid low and valleys will be filled, the way shall be made straight "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together." Biblical quotations in political speeches were more common 45 years ago and were more familiar to American audiences, but no one used biblical quotes better than King, who had earned a Ph.D. in theology.

It is appropriate to reread King's speech (to get the full impact, listen to King's own powerful delivery) on this holiday in his honor. And on this day before the inauguration Barack Obama, it is instructive to realize how far this nation has come since King stood before Lincoln's statue. His plea that day in 1963 was for basic human rights for black citizens — the right to vote, the right to be served in restaurants, the right to use a public bathroom, the right to sleep in a motel. His plea was for civil rights for "The Negro," a term that seems, at best, quaint, today. And today, we can rejoice that the basic rights that King demanded — that "check" promised in the Constitution — has not been rejected for insufficient funds; the bank of justice is not bankrupt. King's dream lives in a newly elected president who won the votes of white voters who ignored the "color of his skin."

Don't stop reading or listening to King's speech. Let it live forever. But don't ever think that things haven't improved since 1963.