. . .

That “content of their character” quote — taken from King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech — has proved to be one of the most dangerous weapons in the effort to airbrush his legacy. It is used widely to suggest that King wished for a color-blind society — that he would have opposed affirmative action, for example — and that all he ever stood for was peace, harmony and coalition-building.

In 2017, when I interviewed entertainer and activist Harry Belafonte, he wondered aloud whether the holiday had done more harm than good to King’s legacy, making us forget the man’s radicalism, even erasing talk of racism.

King never wanted White Americans to get comfortable with discrimination. He never remotely suggested that his dream of a society free of racial discrimination should make us blind to the persistence of racism and inequality.

In an essay published after his assassination, King criticized White America for its “ingrained and tenacious racism.” Even in his “Dream” speech, before he mentioned “content of their character,” he talked about racial segregation, the lasting social and economic impact of slavery, and the Black victims of police brutality. To come away from that speech thinking King called for a color-blind society requires willful distortion, which is exactly what we have seen.

If the King holiday has become a “contested site of memory,” as historian John Kirk put it, we can fight back by celebrating more honestly. We can begin by remembering that, until his death in 1968, King had never gained the approval of most White Americans. In 1966, even after he had won the Nobel Peace Prize, a Gallup survey showed that 63 percent of Americans viewed him negatively. Just prior to his assassination, 3 out of every 4 White Americans disapproved of him. After the assassination, a shocking 31 percent of Americans, according to one survey, believed that King “brought it on himself.” . . .