Martin Luther King and the Quest for a Just Society

This semester, my freshman seminar course “Faith, Doubt and Reason” focuses on utopias, dystopias, and the quest for community and a just society. Since we start tomorrow, the day after Martin Luther King Day, I moved the readings – in fact, viewings – up to the very first day of class.

Most people are familiar with one snippet of the “I have a dream” speech and the “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech – or perhaps they would be better referred to as sermons. Some have read both in their entirety. But there is something to be gained by actually listening to the words spoken by their author and delivered as he intended. I hope it may turn the “sound bite” into something they can contextualize into a real life, struggle, and context. Not that sound bites from King are bad – often even a few words from him contain amazing power and insight.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I hope students will catch at least some of the Biblical quotations and allusions (see this post at BLT for some examples).

Thanks to Allan Bevere for sharing that King’s papers are available online.