Robin Harris:

Sunday marks the 53rd anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Parts of that speech—specifically, the part that asks for judgement based not on the color of one’s skin but the content of one’s character—have come to define King and the Civil Rights Movement, privileging a message of unity, hope, and peace. For years, that dominant narrative of racial collaboration and non-violence has persisted.

Now another civil rights movement, Black Lives Matter, has emerged. It begs comparison. So, we instinctively turn to what we know best, highlighting the portion of King’s dream that made its way onto inspirational posters and glazing over the gritty parts of that speech—the urgency, the fierceness, the discontent, the “rude awakening” and “whirlwinds of revolt,” the “marvelous new militancy.” And so it’s much more common to hear the Black Lives Matter movement described by how it differs from the civil rights activism of the 1960s, instead of similarities and lessons to be learned. Instead of seeing a continuum, we see conflict: the content of one’s character is pitted against the particular status of black lives.