Addressing the crowd that marched on Washington fifty years ago this week, Martin Luther King Jr was lost for words. His powers of oratory had failed. His speech was not rousing the crowd.

From the back of the stage gospel singer Mahalia Jackson’s powerful voice called out. “Give them the dream, Martin!”

Source: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

And so he did. He began to preach.

“I say to you today, my friends, though, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow,” as he pivoted from a description of the political difficulties of the civil rights movement to the famous dream speech, “I still have a dream.”

“It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

“I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

“I have a dream … I have a dream that one day 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.

“I have a dream today … I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

Across the city, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy watched King’s speech, which was carried live by all three networks. It was the first of King’s speeches he had heard. “He’s, good, he’s damn good,” he said.

King’s dream speech famously quotes the Bible. Two easy-to-spot references are:

• Amos 5:24 (NIV): “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”
• Isaiah 40:4-5 (KJV): “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain…”

But, like the Book of Common Prayer, more and more scripture references can be found the harder you look. The speech also reflects the vision of John:

“⁹After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, fromevery nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, ¹⁰ and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10 NIV)

The movement for racial equality, like many social reform movements, was led by people who read the Bible. But white evangelicals handled the challenge of racial equality badly. Churches were painfully slow to integrate. King’s comment, that 11am on Sunday morning was the most racially segregated hour of the week, was true.

And so, the movement was largely led out of black churches. This was not without pain. Not only because it led to many churches being firebombed—and people killed in churches as a result—but because there was concern that justice causes distracted from the gospel. Or, that the energy of the church needed to be focused on straight-forward gospel issues. Even Martin Luther King could not convince his own denomination (the National Baptists) to support his radical vision.

None of this sort of debate is ever easy. William Wilberforce was opposed by many Christians, too.

But over time the links between proclaiming justice and humanity’s need to obey a just God, have become clearer. And churches that opposed Martin Luther King have made their peace with his memory.

But despite the blundering of church leaders, both in the US and Australia, the message of the Bible has born fruit in our time.

As I stood up to recount the story of Martin Luther King at my church a couple of weeks ago, I looked out on a radically diverse congregation, with families from many races, including a lot of mixed race families. This includes a number of our church staff. Being a body of Christ made up of many races is entirely non-controversial these days—and decidedly biblical.

In Martin Luther King’s America, these families may well have been shot, or run out of town fifty years ago.

That happened to my family. Under the White Australia Policy my family was refused entry because my twin and I (who are adopted) were the wrong colour. It took the South Australian government’s intervention to get us in. As a result, I turned six on the high seas.

The lesson of Martin Luther King? The Bible’s message, liberated through preaching, can change a nation. It can’t be kept in the pulpit, it also belongs in the street.