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Forum: King speech had message for everyone

Few civil rights documents have been cited more often than the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered Aug. 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

Defenders of individual rights frequently cite the line, "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."

Defenders of race preferences cite other parts of the speech, reflecting a different side of Dr. King.

"In a sense, we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check," he said. "When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. ... It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.' "

Did King seek an America where each individual would be judged on his or her own merit, or was he ostensibly a political figure, seeking government intervention to achieve some notion of racial "justice"?

Since he was assassinated in 1968, it's impossible to know what King's positions on race and liberty might be today.

Based on his philosophy at the time, however, there is every reason to believe King would have embraced massive government intervention, including preferences, for blacks.

The "Dream" speech was short on specifics, but in a book published the

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