Coming to Collect
- Things kick off with a celebration of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the last speaker of the day. The event took place in 1963, a hundred years ("five score years" [2.1]) after the Emancipation Proclamation.
- The speech "dramatizes" (3.5) the contemporary condition of African Americans: economic insecurity, discrimination, and "exile in [their] own land" (3.4).
- King describes inequality in America as a bad check. He describes the Constitution and Declaration of Independence as "a promissory note" (4.2) owed to "all men" including African Americans (4.3).
- African Americans have come to "cash this check" (5.3) at "the bank of justice" (5.1). The Bank of Justice ATMs probably dispense bills with Superman on them.
- MLK says what time it is. Now is the time. He criticizes "the tranquilizing drug of gradualism," (6.2). If you've ever procrastinated studying, you're intimately familiar with the effects of this drug.