Thousands of streets and hundreds of schools bear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s name. He is the leading figure in schools during Black History Month. Americans know him best for his “I Have a Dream” Speech, especially the line about “content of their character,” not “color of their skin.”

But in the mere 40 years King lived on this earth, the civil rights icon shared messages that many would classify as “radical” or, in today’s parlance, “woke.” The truth is, King’s harder messages hold great value and lessons for today, if we’re able to open our minds to listen to them.

“There’s nobody who had more good reason to lose hope than Martin Luther King, and he continued to believe that we could be better, that this country could do better.” — Jonathan Eig

“I felt like we need King again — but we need the real King,” Jonathan Eig, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning King: A Life, said in November at The Citizen’s 7th annual Ideas We Should Steal Festival presented by Comcast NBCUniversal. “There’s a piece of the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech school children are not being taught that talks about reparations and police brutality and income inequality …”

In the wake of the presidential election, Eig spoke with professor Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, author of two books on MLK, and Rutgers law professor Stacy Hawkins about how King’s speeches and writings in the 1960s still provide important lessons for America today — but only if we learn to understand the real King, beyond the feel-good messages.

“King preached often … the measure of a human being, is not where you stand in easy times, but in difficult times. And that, despite the fear, you speak out and speak up.” — Michael Eric Dyson

Their conversation is featured in its entirety in the video below.

The authors say to separate King from his confrontation of systems of White supremacy, to reduce him to feel-good moments, is to miss a critical part of the civil rights icon’s valuable legacy.

“King is a re-founding father. He helps dig deeper the wells of democracy that replenish our conception of who we are as a nation,” said Dyson. The FBI continued to wiretap King’s phones; the U.S. government continued to view King as a major threat, long after they realized he was not a Communist. They did this because he challenged the status quo, the systems of power of White supremacy. What’s more, time and again, he overcame his deep and justified fear for his life. Herein lies another essential and timely message from King.

Said Dyson, “He preached often that the measure of a man, the measure of a person, the measure of a citizen, of a human being, is not where you stand in easy times, but in difficult times. And that, despite the fear, you speak out and speak up.”

Eig concurred, “There’s nobody who had more good reason to lose hope than Martin Luther King, and he continued to believe that we could be better, that this country could do better.”

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