martin luther king's biblical epic: his final, great speech , keith d. miller

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This article was downloaded by: [University of New Mexico] On: 29 November 2014, At: 22:36 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Rhetoric Review Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hrhr20 Martin Luther King's Biblical Epic: His Final, Great Speech, Keith D. Miller Shirley Wilson Logan a a University of Maryland Published online: 13 Mar 2013. To cite this article: Shirley Wilson Logan (2013) Martin Luther King's Biblical Epic: His Final, Great Speech, Keith D. Miller, Rhetoric Review, 32:2, 215-217, DOI: 10.1080/07350198.2013.766855 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07350198.2013.766855 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

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Page 1: Martin Luther King's Biblical Epic: His Final, Great Speech               , Keith D. Miller

This article was downloaded by: [University of New Mexico]On: 29 November 2014, At: 22:36Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

Rhetoric ReviewPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hrhr20

Martin Luther King's BiblicalEpic: His Final, Great Speech,Keith D. MillerShirley Wilson Logan aa University of MarylandPublished online: 13 Mar 2013.

To cite this article: Shirley Wilson Logan (2013) Martin Luther King's Biblical Epic:His Final, Great Speech, Keith D. Miller, Rhetoric Review, 32:2, 215-217, DOI:10.1080/07350198.2013.766855

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07350198.2013.766855

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and viewsexpressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of theContent should not be relied upon and should be independently verified withprimary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for anylosses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of theContent.

Page 2: Martin Luther King's Biblical Epic: His Final, Great Speech               , Keith D. Miller

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan,sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone isexpressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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Page 3: Martin Luther King's Biblical Epic: His Final, Great Speech               , Keith D. Miller

Rhetoric Review, Vol. 32, No. 2, 215–231, 2013Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0735-0198 print / 1532-7981 onlineDOI: 10.1080/07350198.2013.766855

REVIEW ESSAYSRR

Keith D. Miller. Martin Luther King’s Biblical Epic: His Final, Great Speech.Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2012. 245 pages. $55.00 hardcover.

The first and only time I ever heard Martin Luther King speak I was a collegeundergraduate. It was in the early sixties and I sat mesmerized in the upper tierof what was then the Charlotte (North Carolina) Coliseum. Even then I knew atsome level that I was having a once-in-a-lifetime experience, although I wouldnot have been able to explain why. For at least the last twenty years, KeithMiller has been offering his own explanations through insightful interpretations ofKing’s appeal. In this volume he considers King’s last speech, “I’ve Been to theMountaintop,” delivered in Memphis on April 3, 1968, the night before his assas-sination. Miller relocates it in its broad rhetorical context as well as within theimmediate physical space of Mason Temple, focusing in particular on the text’sbiblical underpinnings.

In Chapter I, Miller traces King’s early religious influences in Atlanta—the sermons of his father MLK Sr., African-American narrative traditions, theAfrican-American jeremiad, and the adaptations of the Exodus story to arguefor emancipation and civil rights. For those who were brought up in or havestudied black public discourse, Miller’s claims in this chapter will come as nosurprise. What Miller does provide are specific examples of the direct influenceof King Sr.’s address at a church conference on King Jr.’s “Mountaintop” speech.The chapter also points to examples of the African-American oratorical practiceof erasing the distinction “between the sacred and the secular or between thechurchly and the civic,” as biographer Andrew Manis describes it (qtd. in Miller33). Of course the Civil Rights Movement made salient this longstanding practicein black public discourse of invoking the always already connections betweenreligion and politics.

Chapter II centers on the influence of several theologians frequently over-looked in the identification of scholars who influenced King’s use of interpretivecommentary. Miller elaborates upon a previous argument that these “lesser-known writers and a larger network they represent structured King’s thoughtand discourse more profoundly than did the prestigious tradition of Euro-American intellectual history” that King credits in his 1958 essay “Pilgrimageto Nonviolence” (Keith D. Miller “Composing Martin Luther King, Jr.” PMLA

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Page 4: Martin Luther King's Biblical Epic: His Final, Great Speech               , Keith D. Miller

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105.1 (1990): 70–82). These theologians include Benjamin Mays, president ofMorehouse College during King’s years there; Howard Thurman, dean of thechapel at Boston University when King matriculated in the PhD program; HarryEmerson Fosdick, minister of Riverside Church in Manhattan, where King oftenpreached; and George Buttrick, minister of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Churchand later Harvard Professor of Christian Morals. It is George Buttrick to whomMiller attends most in discussing King’s use of the Parable of the Good Samaritan,which he narrates in his Mountaintop speech, developing a parallel between theGood Samaritan who stopped to help the wounded traveler and those who wouldbreak out of the pattern of their daily lives to help the Memphis sanitation work-ers. He points to ways in which King “replayed” Buttrick’s account of the Parable,adapting it to “indict slavery and segregation” (60). It appears that this close com-parison is offered not to suggest a violation of some principle of citation but ratherto call attention to local influences on King’s rhetoric that are often overlooked.

Chapter III explores the architectural history of Mason Temple, where Kingdelivered the speech, and the history of Charles Mason and the Church of God inChrist. This chapter places readers within the immediate rhetorical situation andhelps us imagine the mindset of his audience. Miller considers how both King andthe Pentecostals in his audience helped reinforce the power of the human body inreligious expression. Anyone interested in understanding the impact of King’sspeech on that rainy night in this acoustically compact structure should plan a tripto Memphis to experience Mason Temple, armed with the rich background Millerprovides here.

In Chapter IV Miller considers how King transports himself and his audienceout of Memphis, helps them reimagine the biblical Exodus, and relocates theirown strike within the context of the larger Civil Rights Movement. Miller pointsout that at a time when many considered him no longer relevant, King reframesthe Civil Rights struggle within the biblical Exodus story so that the current crisiscan be understood as a struggle between Pharaoh and the Israelites.

Chapter V, “Fire on the Streets and in the Bones,” identifies the extent towhich King’s rhetorical act participates in the prophetic tradition. Here Millerplaces him in the company of a long line of biblical leaders who warned thepeople of the consequences of their evil ways, performing the rhetorical tropeof the jeremiad, which predicts doom and gloom if targeted audience membersdo not reform. Chapter VI highlights the strong ties King consistently developsbetween Christianity and its Judaic foundations and explains King’s employmentof the body “as a site of spiritual struggle and triumph” (112).

Throughout the work Miller provides rich and interesting analyses of ref-erences in King’s speech to which the 1968 auditors as well as contemporaryreaders and listeners would not ordinarily attend. For example, in Chapter VII,Miller considers King’s closing sentence, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the

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Page 5: Martin Luther King's Biblical Epic: His Final, Great Speech               , Keith D. Miller

Review Essays 217

coming of the Lord!” from Julia Ward Howe’s Civil War anthem “Battle Hymnof the Republic.” Miller offers background into the circumstances of its com-poser and suggests that the auditors would have been familiar with the song andwould have invoked its associations with struggle, reaching back to the abolition-ist movement of a century earlier. Miller reminds us that King had used longerpassages from the anthem in previous speeches.

In Chapter VIII, “If I Had Merely Sneezed, I Would Have Died: King’sBiblical Interpretation,” Miller draws on the theory of Hans Gadamer that theinterpretation of a text is more dependent on the circumstances of the interpreterthan the intentions of its author. Thus King was able to see in biblical passagestheir relevance to the contemporary scene and to outline connections betweenJudaism and Christianity that were appropriate to his purposes. As Miller putsit, “the mature King constantly shoved the Bible into the present.” For many inKing’s audience, the Bible was already a constant presence, available as a centralresource.

In addition to the eight-chapter analysis, Miller also includes several appen-dices, the first being the text of this historic speech. He also appends severalrelated source texts and parallel texts, which the serious scholar of King’sspeeches will find valuable.

At points it seems that the discussion of the influences on King’s texts, thelocation of the delivery, the analysis of references to “The Battle Hymn of theRepublic,” and the comparisons with contemporaneous rhetors seem to over-shadow a focused treatment of the elements of the speech itself. Perhaps moredirect connections throughout the volume to rhetorical impact would increaseits appeal. Nonetheless, this volume is an important contribution to the study ofMartin Luther King’s Jr.’s powerful oratory.

SHIRLEY WILSON LOGAN

University of Maryland

Bryan Crable. Ralph Ellison and Kenneth Burke: At the Roots of the RacialDivide Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012. 242 + 13 pages.$22.50 paperback.

In this remarkable book, Professor Bryan Crable pursues two goals. The firstis to show the reciprocal intellectual influences between Kenneth Burke and RalphEllison. In a detailed, painstaking, masterful display of scholarship, Crable tracks

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