Remembering the King of the Mountain

When we were kids in the ’50s, in parochial school, the contractor would plow the heavy snow in the schoolyard up against a tall stockade fence; when the snow hardened, it became a fortress and the classes at recess would take turns storming the fortress in attempting to overtake its defenders. The game was called “king of the mountain.” We had a lot of fun, no one got hurt, the state didn’t interfere, no one sued, and in the midst of it all the Supreme Court said that “separate but equal” in public education was unconstitutional, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 1954. At the same time, Martin Luther King Jr. was obtaining his doctorate at Boston University.

Dr. King was an accomplished orator, no matter one’s opinion of his political views. Rereading his speeches decades following his death, one is struck at how marvelously structured they were. One will mention two, both of which dealt in no small measure with the mountain, almost five years apart, one from the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963, the second on April 3, 1968, in Memphis.

The first, known as “I Have a Dream,” was set in Washington, D.C., at a huge civil rights rally in the summer of 1963. It followed on the heels of King’s earlier “Letter from Birmingham Jail” of April 16, and President Kennedy’s eloquent address to the nation of June 11. Kennedy spoke following the court-ordered admission of two African-American students to the University of Alabama earlier that day. Kennedy saw the quest for civil rights as embracing the idea of equal rights and equal opportunities, reminding us that “We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the Scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.” In August, in the nation’s capital, King speaks of the unfulfilled dream of America and how Lincoln’s efforts had not yet been fully achieved. He urges both his followers and the American people as a whole to continue to pursue their efforts at securing rights for the African-American.

King uses “mountain” as a literal translation but also as a representation, a geographical bridge, a physical venue, a unifying thread and a spiritual quest.

About half way through the speech, King refers to “…the red hills of Georgia.” Then he recalls the biblical prophecy from the Old Testament: “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low … and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” Isaiah 40:3-5. This prophecy is presumably fulfilled in the New Testament. Luke 3: 4-6. It is the idea of moral and spiritual renewal. It includes every hill and mountain, universal as opposed to the particular. So as the biblical prediction had been fulfilled, so too the African Americans’ dream would be secured through faith and effort.

Then King uses “mountain” as a physical commodity, and as a representation, saying that with faith the African American will be able to “hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.” He returns to the universal: “From every mountainside, let freedom ring!” A venue.

Then King shifts from the universal to the particular, as he embraces other parts of the nation in his call for renewal. He proceeds from New England to the MidAtlantic, to the West, to the far West: Let freedom ring, he says “from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire,” from the “mighty mountains of New York,” from the “heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania,” from the “snow-capped Rockies of Colorado,” “from the curvaceous slopes of California.”

Having gone from East to West, he returns to the South, again with the particular “from Stone Mountain of Georgia,” from “Lookout Mountain of Tennessee,” “from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.” In his peroration, he returns to the universal: “From every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

In the next five years, the United States went through a transformation, including the assassination of a president, entry into war, disruptions in colleges and within the political process. A part of the African American dream was realized, too, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Some of King’s dream had been realized.

In 1968, King traveled once more to the South, to Tennessee, to speak on behalf of striking sanitation workers. On April 3, he spoke of the “Promised Land” “… for all the land which you see I will give to you and to your descendants forever.” Genesis 13:15. And he speaks again of the mountain, as a geographical bridge. The mountain is part of the dream, both for him in particular on the eve of his assassination, and for the African American in general. For him to see the promised land, he had to go up to the mountain: “…because I’ve been to the mountaintop … And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land … We, as a people, will get to the promised land! ... Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”

The mountain serves as a connection to the Biblical world, a physical monument, a goal. It is on the path to fulfillment of the American dream, and of the celestial prophecy. With the possible exception of President Kennedy, the Civil Rights leader was the oratorical king of the mountain for his time.

Associated Press file photo The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks to thousands during his “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial.