"I'm Going to Be a Negro Tonight": Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama, and the "Postracial" Paradox

Rieder, Jonathan, Michigan Quarterly Review

Is it just serendipity that Martin Luther King's eightieth birthday was celebrated one day before Barack Obama was sworn in as president? To many ebullient Americans, Obama's triumph marked the fulfillment of King's so-called color-blind dream. The new president has long positioned himself in the King lineage, whether paying homage to the iconic leader with coy indirection ("forty-five years ago today" Americans heard "a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream") or citing phrases from King like "the fierce urgency of now." Most vividly on election night, he channeled King's words from the night before he was assassinated, "We as a people will get there."

If we are truly to …

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Publication information: Article title: "I'm Going to Be a Negro Tonight": Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama, and the "Postracial" Paradox. Contributors: Rieder, Jonathan - Author. Journal title: Michigan Quarterly Review. Volume: 48. Issue: 3 Publication date: Summer 2009. Page number: 315+. © University of Michigan Winter 2009. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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