King has been “endlessly reproduced and selectively quoted, his speeches retain their majesty yet lose their political bite.”48 For many Christian evangelicals, he has become the “quotable King,” whose entire message has been reduced to his dream when his children would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Some of the more “radical” elements of King’s message—which included democratic socialism, ending the war in Vietnam, nuclear de-escalation, a Poor People’s Campaign to force the federal government to address systemic poverty, and support of a
...more
