Journalist Soledad O'Brien dissects MLK's legacy at Southeast speech

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. often is remembered for the "I Have a Dream" speech he delivered in 1963 in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

People particularly like to quote and discuss the lines calling for people to be judged by character, not by color, said Soledad O'Brien during her keynote address at Southeast Missouri State University's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Dinner. But King's speech, and his overall message, was about more than that, she said.

In fact, the civil rights leader never referred to it as the "Dream" speech. It originally was titled "Normalcy -- Never Again." It was not until friend and gospel singer Mahalia Jackson said "Tell em about the dream, Martin," that he went off-script to deliver some of the most famous lines of his most famous speech.

While "I have a dream" has become the phrase for equality and social justice, O'Brien said the speech that inspired it wasn't a "kumbaya" speech.

"... America's failures, that's what it was about," she said.

In the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, all men were guaranteed equality as an unalienable right -- which King described in his speech as a promissory note to all Americans. But the nation "defaulted on this promissory note" and "has given the Negro people a bad check ... which has come back marked 'insufficient funds,'" he said.

That part of the speech tends to make people uncomfortable, O'Brien said, but race is hardly an easy topic.

O'Brien -- an award-winning journalist, documentarian, news anchor, producer and television personality -- said she's spent much of her career trying to bring those difficult subjects to light. She was the originator of the CNN documentary "Black in America," which she said received a lot of attention and plenty of criticism. Much of it was aimed at O'Brien herself.

Many people, especially in blogs, said she was "not black enough to tell that story," she told the audience. Her mother is black and Cuban; her father white and Australian. But O'Brien said people questioned how a woman who "doesn't look or sound black" could talk about the experiences of black people in America. But she understood why some people expressed doubt.

"I was not particularly surprised or particularly annoyed because these [criticisms] showed I might not get it," she said. "... It's ultimately about understanding and understanding the nuance of a story."

She described fights between producers about how to tell the stories of those featured in "Black in America," which aired for the first time in 2008. She mentioned the part of the series that told the story of Glorious Menefee, an 18-year-old high school student struggling to find a way to get into college.

Producers wanted to lead with the story of Menefee's parents: Her mother was a crack addict, and her father was an alcoholic. But O'Brien fought for a different lead because "that's not her story. That's her parents' story." The segment instead began with a description of Menefee and her grades and school activities, later describing how her parents' decisions affected her life.

"When you tell [a person's story] through someone else's dysfunction, you strip away their dignity," O'Brien said.

It's something she said she keeps in mind with each of her stories, and it's an underlying factor in the issue of racial equality, whether it's a discussion of slavery, 1960s civil-rights movements or protests in Ferguson, Missouri.

"I think that's what this is all about -- dignity," O'Brien said. "That's what this all boils down to."

As she concluded her speech, she asked audience members to consider what they did to bring dignity back into their lives and the lives of others. Finally, she asked: "How are you fulfilling the legacy of Dr. King?"

srinehart@semissourian.com

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