martin luther king
Rev. Joel A. Bowman, Sr. is a native of Detroit, Michigan, and has been in ministry for 28 years. For the past 21 years, he has served as the founder and senior pastor of the Temple of Faith Baptist Church, in Louisville, Kentucky. A Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Joel has 30 years of experience in the mental health field. Joel maintains a full-time practice, providing therapy to America’s military Veterans. Joel is a seminar facilitator, freelance writer, poet, and thought leader in the areas of racism and racial trauma. His work has been published in numerous places, including the Louisville Courier-Journal, The Front Porch, The Witness, Three-Fifths Magazine, and Baptist News Global.
Joel Bowman
King’s daughter, Bernice A. King, has said some of her father’s quotes are “cherry-picked for convenience and comfort.” That is definitely true of the “I Have a Dream” speech.
The most often-repeated line of the speech is, “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.”
In an opinion piece titled “The Whitewashing of MLK’s Legacy,” Kennith Woods said, “This singular statement has proven to be powerful and timeless — so much so, that King’s dream has largely overshadowed the rest of his speech and his life"
This statement by King has been grossly misappropriated by many on the right to forward a political agenda that is antithetical to King’s philosophy. Some right-wing pundits have misused this line from the speech to suggest King envisioned a “colorblind” America. This certainly was not the case. What King actually envisioned was an America where racial inequality would be eradicated.
Others have misused this line from King’s speech to say he would have been against affirmative action and that he believed to “make it” in America, people just need to pull themselves up by their own “bootstraps.” This is patently false.
In a 1967 interview with NBC, King said, “It’s a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. And many Negroes by the thousands and millions have been left bootless as a result of all of these years of oppression and as a result of a society that deliberately made his color a stigma and something worthless and degrading.”
Still others, like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, have invoked King’s name while opposing those who organize to protest police brutality of Black bodies. -Rev Joel Bowman; Baptist News Global; More than a dream: The undiluted legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. 8/28.23
The most often-repeated line of the speech is, “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.”
In an opinion piece titled “The Whitewashing of MLK’s Legacy,” Kennith Woods said, “This singular statement has proven to be powerful and timeless — so much so, that King’s dream has largely overshadowed the rest of his speech and his life"
This statement by King has been grossly misappropriated by many on the right to forward a political agenda that is antithetical to King’s philosophy. Some right-wing pundits have misused this line from the speech to suggest King envisioned a “colorblind” America. This certainly was not the case. What King actually envisioned was an America where racial inequality would be eradicated.
Others have misused this line from King’s speech to say he would have been against affirmative action and that he believed to “make it” in America, people just need to pull themselves up by their own “bootstraps.” This is patently false.
In a 1967 interview with NBC, King said, “It’s a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. And many Negroes by the thousands and millions have been left bootless as a result of all of these years of oppression and as a result of a society that deliberately made his color a stigma and something worthless and degrading.”
Still others, like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, have invoked King’s name while opposing those who organize to protest police brutality of Black bodies. -Rev Joel Bowman; Baptist News Global; More than a dream: The undiluted legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. 8/28.23
