A Dream

"... one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places plains, and the crooked places will be made straight... and before the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." With this crudely transcribed misappropriation of Scripture (cf. Isaiah 40:4-5). Martin Luther King initiated the conclusion of his "I Have a Dream" Black Liberation treatise.


"Misappropriation" is not an over statement, King plagiarized liberally and habitually from a variety of eloquent and high-minded sources in so much that Ralph E. Luker, King Papers Project researcher and civil rights historian, comments:

"Moreover, the farther King went in his academic career, the more deeply ingrained the patterns of borrowing language without clear attribution became. Thus, the plagiarism in his dissertation seemed to be, by then, the product of his long-established practice" (Ralph E. Luker "On Martin Luther King's Plagiarism" 2004-12-21).

It is one thing to misappropriate the words of men, but quite another to misappropriate the words of God to support a social [socialist] gospel i.e., the precepts of men.


King in typical Black Liberation eisegetical fashion "spiritualizes" i.e., reads into the Isaiah passage any idea he chooses rather than allowing the literal contextual messianic meaning to pervade:

"Every Valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God" ( Luke 3:5-6).


King learned too late that there are consequences for misappropriating Scripture even to end that blacks are liberated from real or supposed economic, political, or social, subjugation. Black America is learning still:


"Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity" (Matthew 7:22-23).