The Paradoxical Implications of Blackness and the U.S. Constitution: The Intersectionality of King's "I Have a Dream" Speech and Educational Inequalities.

Abstract

Employing the rhetorical phraseology of a "promissory note," dramatized in the public address of Martin Luther King Jr., during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, this article historically postulates Black Americans as constitutional beggars until Reconstruction. The white framers of our Republic legislated the dehumanization and constitutional disregard of Black Americans who continuously find themselves fighting for rights and privileges granted through American citizenship. Illuminating the paradoxical implications of blackness, substantiated in anti-black policies and practices that beset educational institutions, unravels the connectedness between King's public address and educational inequalities. Brown v. Board of Education becomes a palpable case that congeals King's ideological usage of the term "promissory note" with educational inequalities and solidifies the ideological connectedness between blackness and schooling.