Which MLK?

Just a few days ago, the New York Times published a piece challenging the sanitized version of history that’s told every year during celebrations of Martin Luther King’s birthday. Today, King is (almost) universally celebrated in America, one of just a handful of historical figures around whom we come together as a nation. Yet, as Jason Sokol reminds us, King was far from a unifying force during his lifetime. Even a decade after his murder, he was a divisive figure, someone reviled by the conservative right. That changed after the vote to make his birthday a national holiday, but only by

Sokol’s piece serves as an excellent introduction to our study of 1960s America this semester. The past defines us: history is a story we tell ourselves to discover who we are, both as individuals and as a nation. Yet in studying the past we often learn that our most familiar stories are also the most distorted, comforting half-truths that are equal parts fact and myth.

After reading Sokol, I want you to take a minute here at the semester’s start to consider ONE of the following:

1. How does Sokol’s account change your sense of what America is all about?
2. How does his essay make you feel? Is it better to believe the myth or know the truth?
3. How does his narrative challenge what you thought you knew about the 1960s?

Paste the question you’re answering, together with a 1-¶ response in the comment space below. Make an effort to reference particular details from Sokol: vague responses leave readers with the impression that you didn’t do the reading.

In class: Course Dogma; Myths of the 1960s; learning as process of refining initially crude preconceptions; learning history as process of consulting experts and grappling with instances/documents/fragments of a lost past.