Dr. King was an amazing man, but I think that we often trivialize his message and flatten his character. We remember one line from one speech: “I have a dream.” Do we even remember what his dream was? We know it was something about equality, but do we remember what he actually said? I know I didn’t. I had to go look it up.

The first part of his dream was just that, equality. He said, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’” Pretty simple, we’re all equal; we all get an equal shot of making it, but what he called for next was something much more profound.

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood….

“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….

“I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification – one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

“This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with…. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”

You see, he called us to much more than a simple legal equality. He called for more than forced integration and legal protections for workers. He didn’t even stop at calling for an end to racism. He took it one step further. He called for brotherhood. He called for unity. He called us to embrace each other as brothers and sisters. He called for us to be one people.

I think that as a nation we also tend to forget his title of Reverend. You can watch a news report and see a certain level of spirituality in his life and message, but we put the fact that he was a man of God in some sort of secondary role. He graduated from Crozer Theological Seminary as class valedictorian with a Bachelor of Divinity degree, and it was in a lecture at Crozer that he was first introduced to the idea of pacifism. Had King not been in seminary, it is highly unlikely he would have ever been the leader of a nonviolent resistance movement that forever changed America. Moreover, when we reference him as “Dr. King,” we do so because he earned a Ph.D. from Boston University, in systematic theology. Dr. King was who he was in large part because of his time spent as a theological scholar.

Going back to words from that famous speech that are often left out of newscasts and of our memories:

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

“This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with…. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

“This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father’s died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!

“Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring – when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children – black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics – will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” (emphasis mine)

Finally, we forget that the great Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. cared about more than civil rights and racial reconciliation. He cared about social justice. He cared for the poor. Towards the end of his life he began to expand the scope of his work. In late 1967 he started the Poor People’s Campaign. While King obviously saw poverty as an epidemic within the black community, he also recognized that there were systemic problems of poverty in communties from all races. This work that he began was perhaps his most controversial. It caused some of his supporters to turn against him, but he believed that all people deserved the ability to earn enough money to live.

I think we need to move beyond the simple feel good aspects of Dr. King’s life that we like to remember. I think we need to explore the depth of his character if we are to truly honor his legacy. He has a great deal to teach if we are willing to learn. I’ve only highlighted three issues. The more I read about Dr. King, the more I realize what a complex and controversial figure he was. I liken him to King David from the Bible, a man after God’s own heart but still a fallen sinner, a great man who did great things but who also had great flaws.

If you’re interested in learning more about Dr. King, Stanford has an excellent biography that I used to help write this article. The biography itself is short, but it is littered with links that allow you to explore different parts of his life more in depth. I should also mention that I did reference the Martin Luther King Wikipedia article. Most importantly, I need to tell you that my wife was the inspiration for this post. She was the one who initially pointed out to me that we so often gloss over Dr. King’s life and limit our impression of him to one sliver of one speech he delivered.

I’ve put a couple of videos below. The first is his “I Have a Dream” speech (the whole thing), which you can also read here. The second two are the address he gave at Mason Temple Church of God in Christ on the night before his assassination.