Developing a critique that focused on capitalism’s psychic hold over people, King used the idea of the frontier to put forward a counter value structure, an alternative vision of American history and morality. African Americans, he said, confronted a reality “as harsh and demanding as that of the pioneer on the untamed frontier.”6 That harshness forged character and weeded out frivolity; it sharpened “knowledge and discipline … courage and self-sacrifice.”
