Martin Luther King Jr.

Beyond “I Have a Dream”

The right wing twists Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words to attack anti-racist education, focusing almost exclusively on MLK’s “I have a dream” declaration.

But Dr. King was a radical — in the most profound sense.

He denounced the Vietnam War, when it was politically risky, and did not mince words about U.S. racism: “The doctrine of white supremacy was imbedded in every textbook and preached in practically every pulpit. It became a structural part of the culture.”

On this holiday weekend, take a moment to read King in context, including his thoughts on Reconstruction, war, nuclear weapons, and police brutality.

Dr. King on Reconstruction

We recommend reading what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said about Reconstruction as part of his tribute to W. E. B. Du Bois.

King explains that “white historians had for a century crudely distorted the Negro’s role in the Reconstruction years. It was a conscious and deliberate manipulation of history and the stakes were high.” He describes how Du Bois set out to demolish the myths in his vital text, Black Reconstruction in America.

Reconstruction in Schools

The Zinn Education Project has found that many of the myths W. E. B. Du Bois and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described still prevail in state standards on Reconstruction. We document those findings in our report, Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle: How State Standards Fail to Teach the Truth About Reconstruction. This is the first national study on the teaching of Reconstruction.

Please read and share!

Dr. King on More Topics

On War

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death….

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. — Martin Luther King Jr., A Revolution of Values

Check out our growing list of

resources for teaching about Palestine and Israel.

On Nuclear Weapons

These days, some textbooks acknowledge Dr. King’s critique of the Vietnam War. However, King’s actions against nuclear weapons began a full decade earlier in the late 1950s. From 1957 until his death, through speeches, sermons, interviews, and marches, King consistently protested the use of nuclear weapons and war. King called for an end to nuclear testing, asking, “What will be the ultimate value of having established social justice in a context where all people, Negro and White, are merely free to face destruction by Strontium-90 or atomic war?” — Vincent Intondi in “The Untold History of the Movement to Ban the Bomb”

On Police Brutality

In a lesser-known part of his March on Washington speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed, “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.” He described “the total pattern of economic exploitation under which Negroes suffer” in northern cities as a “system of internal colonialism” where police and the courts act as “enforcers.” — Jeanne Theoharis in The Atlantic.

More resources to teach about Martin Luther King Jr.

Challenging Anti-History Education Laws

While right-wing legislatures restrict the teaching of Black history, we support teachers who work to teach truthfully about U.S. history.

Thanks to a generous collaboration with Dartmouth College historian Matthew Delmont, the Zinn Education Project sent 14,000 copies of Delmont’s book Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad to public school teachers, school librarians, and teacher educators. This included 4,000 hardback copies in 2022 and 2023 — and 10,000 copies of the 2024 paperback edition.

Hot Off the Press

New Issue of Rethinking Schools Magazine

Teach the Black Freedom Struggle

Next Class: Monday, Feb. 5

Heather McGhee, author of The Sum of Us: How Racism Hurts Everyone, will discuss the young readers’ edition on Monday, February 5.

Our Teach the Black Freedom Struggle classes are ideal for teachers and teacher education students. Teachers are bringing high school students to the classes, too. The response: "Amazing." "It launched great class discussions." (Let us know if you plan to bring students so that we can plan for the breakout groups.)

PD certificates and ASL interpretation provided.

Check out more events, including the Teach the Black Freedom Struggle class series and the D.C. Area Black Lives Matter at School Curriculum Fair (online for national participation), and more.

Teachers are under attack for teaching truthfully about U.S. history. Please donate so that we can continue to offer free people’s history lessons and resources and defend teachers’ right to use them.