Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., c. 1967.

Photograph by Florida Memory via Unsplash. General Collections Repository: State Library and Archives of Florida.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is often remembered as a saint who spoke of love, unity, and a dream of racial harmony. His legacy has been carved into marble monuments, reduced to sanitized soundbites about judging people by the content of their character. Yet this portrayal — a version of MLK palatable to the very forces he stood against — betrays the radical nature of his vision and action. Recovering King’s true legacy requires re-engaging with his own words, which were deeply challenging to the status quo, and placing them in conversation with contemporary voices who have continued the struggle for justice.

As Craig Gordon has recently written, “The bland projection of King as promoting moderate reforms and racial harmony obscures his legacy of fierce opposition to white supremacy, capitalist exploitation, and violence at home and abroad.”

King’s words, drawn from the Birmingham jail, his sermons, and the Poor People’s Campaign, reveal a man deeply aware of systemic oppression. He didn’t merely dream of harmony; he demanded equity. “A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth,” King wrote in 1967. For him, justice was not a vague ideal but a rigorous demand that required dismantling unjust systems. To invoke King while ignoring these truths is to distort his vision into a tool of oppression — what James Baldwin would call a dangerous innocence.

Baldwin’s voice provides a vital lens through which to understand King’s radicalism. Baldwin, a sharp critic of America’s racial hypocrisies, understood that white America’s acceptance of sanitized narratives was a form of avoidance. “We made the world we’re living in,” Baldwin wrote, “and we have to make it over.”[i] Baldwin’s critique of the American Dream as predicated on Black suffering aligns with King’s insistence that the nation confront its moral failures. Both men knew that racial reconciliation without structural change was a hollow gesture. King’s “Beloved Community” wasn’t a vague utopia, but a society built on justice, equity, and shared power — an idea Baldwin echoed when he demanded accountability and truth-telling from white Americans.

Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste” deepens this conversation by reframing America’s racial hierarchy as a caste system — a rigid structure designed to maintain the dominance of one group over another. King’s speeches often pointed to systemic issues rather than individual failings, and Wilkerson’s work helps articulate why those systems persist. Her analysis reveals how racism operates as an organizing principle in American life, embedded in laws, institutions, and cultural norms. King’s calls for economic justice and policy change resonate with Wilkerson’s arguments; both expose the lie that merit or hard work alone can dismantle systemic inequality. If King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is remembered, it should be for its demand that America fulfill its “promissory note” of justice — a promise broken by the caste realities Wilkerson so powerfully names.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, in his essay “The Case for Reparations” and his book “Between the World and Me,” carries forward the mantle of King’s radicalism. Coates names the enduring consequences of slavery, Jim Crow, and redlining — not as historical artifacts but as present realities shaping Black life in America. His work underscores what King knew: justice requires reparative action, not just reconciliation. Coates critiques the myth of progress, the notion that America’s racial wounds will heal with time. He calls instead for truth-telling and accountability, echoing King’s insistence that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice only if we actively pull it there.

When conservatives or moderates invoke King to argue for colorblindness or gradualism, they not only misrepresent him but also erase the voices of those who continue his work. They weaponize his memory to uphold the status quo, using his calls for love as a shield against demands for justice. This appropriation is what Baldwin warned of when he said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” To recover King, we must face the full breadth of his message: love rooted in justice, peace built on equity, and unity forged through truth.

Recovering King’s legacy also means confronting our own complicity in systems of injustice. King’s critique of the “white moderate”— those more devoted to order than justice — remains painfully relevant. Today, calls for “civility” often function as a way to silence demands for change. When King said, “Justice too long delayed is justice denied,” he wasn’t merely speaking to overt racists but to those who professed sympathy while doing nothing. This critique stings because it implicates many who claim to honor him.

The work of Baldwin, Wilkerson, and Coates sharpens this critique. Baldwin’s searing honesty forces us to confront the emotional and spiritual cost of avoiding the truth. Wilkerson’s systemic analysis reveals how deeply inequality is baked into our society. Coates’s arguments for reparations challenge us to move beyond symbolic gestures to substantive change. Each, in their way, continues King’s demand for justice — a demand that cannot be reduced to platitudes.

How, then, should we honor King’s legacy in our time? First, by rejecting any version of his message that erases its radical demands. King was not merely a dreamer; he was a disruptor. Second, by amplifying the voices of those who continue to call for systemic change. Baldwin, Wilkerson, and Coates remind us that the struggle for justice is ongoing and multifaceted. Third, by committing to action — not just in words but in policies, practices, and everyday choices. Whether it’s supporting reparations, challenging discriminatory systems, or educating ourselves and others about the realities of racial injustice, the work is ours to do.

King’s vision was never meant to comfort the comfortable. It was a call to action, a challenge to remake the world. Recovering his legacy means embracing that challenge, not just in memory but in practice. It means refusing to let his words be used to silence the very demands he championed. And it means carrying forward the work of Baldwin, Wilkerson, Coates, and countless others who remind us that the dream King spoke of will remain deferred until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.