History Professor Thomas Sugrue opened his lecture on Martin Luther King Jr. yesterday with this quote from Sugrue's 3 1/2-year-old daughter: "He told people to be good."
As part of the History Department's Twentieth Century Lives lecture series, Sugrue spoke to a crowd of more than 50 members of the University community in College Hall about the life of the civil rights leader.
Sugrue focused on the difference between the public images of King -- who, had he lived, would have turned 73 this Tuesday -- and the man he truly was.
Sugrue said that, like his own daughter, most people have grown up with a fairly stereotypical, simplified picture of the man who gave a face to the Civil Rights Movement and a three-day-weekend in January.
Sugrue began his speech by pointing out that there has been a "remarkable transformation in the image of the man who was once called a 'clerical fraud and a Marxist' by J. Edgar Hoover." For many, Sugrue said, King's popularity today is a testament to how far race relations have come.
"There are actually several Martin Luther King Jrs. who compete for our accommodation and allegiance," Sugrue said.
Sugrue then went on to describe the different ways in which King's life has been portrayed, both during King's lifetime and after his assassination.
"Each of these visions is fundamentally flawed, as they each provide a one-dimensional, historical freeze-frame image that fails to situate... King's complex ideas and politics in a larger historical context," Sugrue said.
For the next hour, Sugrue attempted to convey a multi-faceted view of King and the contributions that both his actions and memory have made to society. Sugrue highlighted the influence of King's ministerial role on his speeches.
At one point, Sugrue even called King the "greatest public orator in perhaps all of U.S. history." Later, he emphasized King's belief that his own role as a clergyman made him a national leader.
"The intellectual should be engaged in the problems of the world," Sugrue said. "It was to him an axiom that philosophy and theology should shape activism, that ideas mattered."
Following his lecture, Sugrue took questions from members of the audience, many of whom wanted to know his opinion on what King's reaction would be to modern events, such as the war on terrorism and the rise of AIDS in the black community.
While Sugrue was reluctant to put words in King's mouth, he did respond to a question about one of the most recent controversial topics on campus -- plagiarism. It has been alleged that King plagiarized in his doctoral dissertation.
History Professor Thomas Childers, whose book The Wings of Mourning was allegedly plagiarized by noted historian Stephen Ambrose, attended the lecture.
Sugrue pointed out that utilizing the ideas and words of others is a large part of the "black preaching tradition." However, not wanting to make excuses for the modern hero, he quoted King's assertion that "no one is perfect, we are all sinners and can't all be lionized."
Sugrue ended his presentation with a reminder that many of King's dreams have not yet become reality. The first step in working toward that reality, Sugrue said, is "rejecting the static, stereotypical image of... King and instead grappling with the troubling questions he dared to ask."
The Twentieth Century Lives lecture series, co-sponsored by the History Department and the College Alumni Society, presents four public lectures each semester. In this series, Penn professors explore lives that shaped and illuminated the century. Upcoming subjects for the lecture series include Mao Zedong and Margaret Thatcher.
Past speakers in the series have included Childers himself, who last semester gave a lecture on Elvis Presley.
