Living the Dream
eBook - ePub

Living the Dream

The Contested History of Martin Luther King Jr. Day

  1. 352 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Living the Dream

The Contested History of Martin Luther King Jr. Day

About this book

Living the Dream tells the history behind the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the battle over King’s legacy that continued through the decades that followed. Creating the first national holiday to honor an African American was a formidable achievement and an act of resistance against conservative and segregationist opposition.

Congressional efforts to commemorate King began shortly after his assassination. The ensuing political battles slowed the progress of granting him a namesake holiday and crucially defined how his legacy would be received. Though Coretta Scott King’s mission to honor her husband’s commitment to nonviolence was upheld, conservative politicians sought to use the holiday to advance a whitewashed, nationalistic, and even reactionary vision of King’s life and thought. This book reveals the lengths that activists had to go to elevate an African American man to the pantheon of national heroes, how conservatives took advantage of the commemoration to bend the arc of King’s legacy toward something he never would have expected, and how grassroots causes, unions, and antiwar demonstrators continued to try to claim this sanctified day as their own.

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Yes, you can access Living the Dream by Daniel T. Fleming in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & African American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. List of Illustrations
  7. Introduction
  8. 1. Fighting to Desegregate the American Calendar (1968–1983)
  9. 2. Living the Dream: A Color-Blind Holiday (1984–1986)
  10. 3. Let Freedom Ring: Celebrating in the Reagan Era (1986–1989)
  11. 4. The World House: King Day in the Age of Democratic Revolutions (1989–1992)
  12. 5. A Day On, Not a Day Off: Transforming the King Holiday (1993–1995)
  13. 6. The Coca-Cola Scenario: Privatizing King Day (1995–1996)
  14. 7. To Sleep, Shop, or Serve?: The Holiday in Transition (1997–2000)
  15. 8. In the Streets: Reclaiming the King Holiday (2001 to the Present)
  16. Conclusion
  17. Acknowledgments
  18. Notes
  19. Bibliography
  20. Index