Fall 2022: Gov 20H Begins

For Wednesday of next week, read Allen through ch. 18.

Will send you a Zoom lecture.

Slow reading and democratic writing.

The speech and its setting serve as an introduction to American politics

A CMC connection!

Who was on the program and why?

I Have a Dream


Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

• Why the reference to Lincoln?  Hint  And another hint.
• An allusion within an allusion: The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.(Psalm 90:10)

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

• Why the reference to the Declaration?
• Why the reference to the Constitution?

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. 

• Was he talking about anybody in particular?  It's complicated...

We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.

• What specific cases of police violence were on the audience's mind?

We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

• How did Mississippi keep African Americans from voting?
• What did he mean about New York?

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

• What is the American dream?

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

• What is a creed?
• What is a self-evident truth?
• What does the Declaration mean?  (We shall return to this question)

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

• Who was George Wallace?  What was his connection to Gettysburg?

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

• What's on Stone Mountain?

So what does the Declaration mean?   Consider terms such as “equal,” “self-evident.”  Think about the other readings and ask how they help us understand these terms.

Looking ahead to ch. 24: "The words `implicit' and `explicit' come from plicare, which means “to fold,” as when you fold your clothes. So think of a sound bite as a suitcase."

W.H. Auden, "September 1, 1939"

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Textual analysis and slow reading

• Thinking about how one sentence relates to another;
• Thinking about the origins of terms in the document;
• Thinking about how the document relates to others (p. 33)
• Thnking about what is missing. See pp. 22 on the 2012 campaign.

Patrimony

• Something that you inherit:  heritage.
• Back to "I Have a Dream" "When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir."

Democracy

• What is democracy?
• Who decides who "the people" are?  What is citizenship?
• Why is the word not in the Declaration or Constitution?
• What are the conditions of democracy?

The Declaration