 Welcome. I'm very pleased to welcome you to this conversation in celebration of Martin Luther King Day. I'm Renee Romano. I'm a professor of history at Oberlin College and I'm a specialist in civil rights movement history and in the historical memory of the civil rights movement or how it's remembered and represented in political and popular culture. And I want to thank you for joining us here and I want to thank the National Archives for sponsoring this event. I am thrilled to be able to welcome Dr. Daniel Fleming. With us today, he is an expert on the history of the Martin Luther King Junior Day Holiday. Dr. Fleming earned his PhD in history from the University of New Castle in 2016. He currently teaches history at the University of New South Wales. He's an active writer, teacher and blogger and he is the author of Living the Dream, the Contested History of the Martin Luther King Junior Day, which was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2022. Welcome Dr. Fleming. We're thrilled to have you with us here for this conversation today. Thank you Professor Romano and to the National Archives for inviting me to speak. It's a real pleasure. I wanted to start by just asking you as folks can tell if they're listening. They probably can tell from your accent that you're Australian and that you're joining us here from Australia. So I'm wondering how is it that you first got interested in the Martin Luther King Junior Day Holiday? What brought you to this project? So it is the combination of a lot of study and my interest in Martin Luther King, social and political transformation and I suppose revolutionary activity. I first heard Kings I have a dream speech in long form in university lectures instead of just the snippets that you hear on the news. And I still remember to this day that afternoon listening to that, you know, it would have been a VHS video version, listening to that and thinking, wow, like how amazing are his words, his delivery and the like. So when I began to study more, I wrote about the civil rights movement and I completed a master's degree about King and the FBI and I analysed some letters that Americans wrote to J. Edgar Hoover describing their thoughts about King. Was he a communist? Was he not a communist? And the third chapter of that master's, I've read about the way memorandums that the FBI sent to Richard Nixon, even Henry Kissinger saying that the FBI opposed Martin Luther King Junior Holiday, that it would be a national calamity, I think were the exact words. And for me, that was really striking. Like, this was four years or so after King's death. And the FBI, while J. Edgar Hoover is still alive, is actively campaigning, not just against the man, but against his legacy. And that really struck me, like how threatening did they find him? And so that was the sort of the end point of my master's. And so then I went on to study about the King holiday, because I thought there was new things to be to be found there. Well, that's so interesting, because I think we're now have been the legislation that created the King holiday was passed nearly 40 years ago. Right. This holiday has been around a long time. I think for many Americans, it seems normal, not controversial. So to hear that the FBI said it would be a national calamity is a really interesting story. So I'd love to hear more about that. Like, when King was assassinated in 1968, how was he viewed by both whites and African Americans? And then whose idea was it to try to get a holiday to King? How does this process get started? So the process has started with really John Conyers, the representative John Conyers, his Democrat African American from Detroit. And he is the one who introduces King holiday legislation to to the House of Representatives. And he begins, I think on the 8th of April, you know, even before the burial of Martin Luther King. So and he he he talks to Coretta Scott King and gets, you know, her endorsement for the idea. And so every year from there on, except for one or two years, John Conyers puts this legislation to Congress. Now, in the Senate, Senator Ed Brooke from Massachusetts, who's also African American, he proposes like a memorial day, but it's not quite the same thing. It's a more of a not not a federal holiday. So it's it's it's that kind of there's already a bit of a I suppose a tussle about who like how much should King be honored. And now King's popularity at the time. Look, most historians agree that his popularity had fallen. He had, you know, historians often cite a Gallup poll from 1966 that says, you know, King wasn't even in the top 10% of popular Americans. He was alienated from Lyndon Johnson in the White House, though I think most people probably were sort of alienated from Johnson at that point in time. In the African American community, we see the rise of the Black Panthers. And there's reaction against the sort of non violence that that King has so assiduously stuck by. I mean, he never does give give that up. And people like Stokely Carmichael, for example, and student of our Coordinated Committee changed direction. And, you know, have more of an emphasis on self defense, you know, and particularly in Oakland in the Black Panthers in San Francisco in 1967. So King is sort of seen as being a bit on the altar. And among white Americans, his criticism of the Vietnam War is seen as almost treasonous, you know, taking the sides of the Communist of North Vietnam. And this dogs his legacy throughout sort of the 1970s, at least in the early period of the 70s. But I do think King's unpopularity at the time is a kind of a strange unpopularity as well. Because when he is assassinated, you know, 150,000 people turn out to the streets of Atlanta, 50 representatives from the House of Representatives, 30 senators, you know, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, you know, a lot of people attend his funeral. And so, you know, I think it's a, you know, some describing as the most hated man in America, but it's an unusual, I think unpopularity, because on the one hand, I think he still has substantial popularity. And that's reflected when the King campaign, the holiday campaign kicks off. So one of the other people who take it up is Ralph Abernathy, who succeeds King in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. And they gather a petition of about 3 million signatures by the early 70s. And that's the biggest petition handed to Congress up to that point in time. So, you know, I think he has a very mixed leg, a very mixed, people have a lot of mixed feelings about him. And there are some who say, well, you know, he got what he deserved. You know, Jason Sokol was written about this, you know, there's this kind of revenge element to his demise. But then again, other people, he's still beloved. Right. So it's you have a petition with 3 million signatures in the early 70s. This holiday isn't enacted into legislation until 1983. What takes so long or what changes that enables it to finally pass through Congress and to become law that there would be a federal holiday? So one thing is, and I think it's really not to be underestimated, is African Americans take the day off themselves. So there's, there is a, you know, a kind of de facto holiday beginning anyway. And that is how many holidays begin anyway. Like, I mean, you know, things like Thanksgiving and Columbus Day, and holidays like these are observed before the federal government codifies them into law. And when we talk about a federal holiday, to be specific, we're talking about a holiday that the federal government pays federal employees to take off. And that is what a federal holiday is. It doesn't extend to state or local employees or private businesses. But states, local governments and private businesses often follow the lead of the federal government. But then you do, you have these grassroots observances, well, we're not going to wait for the federal government or our employer or the state government, etc, to codify the holiday. So that's the first thing I would say. The second thing I would say is that when the church committee in Congress investigates espionage and the shenanigans and the violations of the FBI and the CIA, and this happens after Jay Gahoova dies in Watergate, there is essentially an official exoneration of King. You know, the FBI says, actually, we had no evidence. Yes, there was no real evidence that King was influenced by communists that he had a, you know, a line to Moscow, this kind of thing. Yes, a few activists, or people like Stanley Levinson, a man called I think Odell, were sort of former communists who were lending their activist skills to the civil rights movement. But that is as far as it is as it went. So this is official exoneration. And then cities and states, some of them start to declare holidays throughout the 70s. And also, some unions get them holidays in wage negotiations with their employers and things like that. So that's how that's how that sort of comes. That's how come it comes to be. Now, one of the things that they're the opposition is, you know, once you get over the FBI thing, and that allegation, it's like, well, how relevant is King to all of all of America? Right? Is he just relevant to the black community? Because that is the line that some people start to take. Well, his contribution to the nation really wasn't that worthy of a national holiday. And there were only nine at that point. So it is quite a substantial thing to declare a national holiday or federal holiday for somebody. May, you know, I suppose there is a kind of historical threshold that they need to, to kind of pass over to, to be on the national calendar. So there was to be argument about that. And maybe we can. Well, one of the things that I find really interesting about the King holiday, you've referred to it as, you know, this debate over how much was it was King just for, you know, serving African Americans, or did he do a larger service to the nation? And one of the questions that I think emerges about about a holiday in honor of King is whether it should be for an individual like Dr. Martin Luther King, or whether there should be a more general celebration of the civil rights movement and what it did to, you know, increase the level of freedom and enact law, the democratic laws in the United States. And I'm wondering, you know, particularly thinking about how unusual it is to have a national holiday for a single individual. What do you think of that? Like, in what ways is King representing something larger here? And what ways is it just about him? And how would we, you know, how would you answer that, that critique that this is not on that shouldn't be a national holiday. It should be more of a, you know, an ethnic or a particular interest group holiday. So this was one of the big debates. Should it be named after an individual? Because after all, on the American calendar, the only individuals mentioned, you know, up to this point in time were Columbus, Christ, and sort of George Washington, although it had become President's Day. So equating King as an individual is a significant thing. And this is the idea that, you know, the people are countering this by saying he's not as important as, you know, the discoverer of the Americas, the founder of the nation and the son of Christ as the son of God, you know, he might be a big deal, but he's not that big a deal. But the other argument was that to sort of counter that was that, you know, he fulfilled and completed the ideals of the American constitution, you know, the ideals of the quality, and the amendments 13th, 14th, 15th amendments and, you know, all men are created equal. So in fact, he is on that level. So there's that one, there's one argument there. Another argument is whether he, whether the day should be specifically named after him, or just called a generic civil rights day, or, and there are other things, you know, a disabled rights day, you know, should there be other causes. But people such as Ted Kennedy in the Senate, when it really comes down to the nuts and bolts of the debate, say, if you call the day Martin Luther King day, you are specifically identifying an African American. And thereby, in a sense, desegregating the calendar that there is, that's not a phrase that they use, that's a phrase I use, but that that is something that is very implicit and explicit with naming the day after Martin Luther King. So I think that, and that is basically why the day is, is made. It's been and it's also because King has, you know, he is popular, you know, in that time, people, you know, he made his his reputation grew through the 70s and the early 80s. So there is, there is something that, you know, the geographers, I think, Derek Alderman and Owen Dwyer called like a sort of a memorial hybridity, right, he appeals to more than just one group. And that's, that's why he Congress finishes up agreeing to it. Right. And the conservatives in Congress say, you know, liberals and conservatives can unite around this idea of King and his dream. So that, you know, so if there were obstacles in the 70s in the 80s, you know, Jesse Helms is one of the big obstacles, I suppose, but his arguments overcome in Congress. Right. I think that that issue of like, you know, name it after King, because that is effectively desegregating the calendar, the national calendar is a really interesting one. We look at the larger landscape of memory of monuments of public history in the United States. You know, in the 70s and the early 80s, right, it really is reflecting primarily the history of white Americans, right, there's very little on landscape that's that's reflecting the diversity of American history on that public statue landscape or the memorial landscape. So I think it's, you know, it's really symbolic, right, to have this, this holiday named after King. And one of the things that really I found fascinating in reading your book. And I never really thought about before. I mean, I guess I thought, you know, you have a holiday, you declared a holiday, it's a holiday. But in fact, they establish a commission, the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Holiday Commission or some very long name, right, that is established to try to set a pattern for how this should be celebrated, right, to give this new holiday meaning. So I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit about that commission, and how it decides in, you know, in 1983, 84, 85, like what it's going to do to try to shape the way this holiday is celebrated and what it means to people. So I found that King Holiday Commission to be a fascinating organization. And its archives or all of its papers are in the National Archives in Atlanta. And that's where I was able to do a lot of the research for the book. Now the commission is led by Coretta Scott King. She's the the leader of the commission and has the sort of the appointment for life as long as, you know, as long as she wants it. Although having said that, the commission was initially only supposed to be there for one year, but then it gets extended. The makeup of the commission was interesting. There were four senators. There were four representatives. Then President Reagan got to appoint four people who he wanted to appoint. And then there was a selection and then those sort of there was a selection committee within there that then appointed 14 people at large. So from unions, businesses, Peter Oberoth, I think who organized the Olympics in 1984. He was on there because he was seen as a can-do person who can make things happen. What I found was that the commission, particularly with the appointments from Ronald Reagan, is he appoints African Americans of a more conservative political disposition. So Clarence Pendleton being one notable one. And they have quite different ideas, I think, about what civil rights means to say Coretta Scott King who, you know, and Martin Luther King, who are interested in, you know, remedial action, like affirmative action, for example. Clarence Pendleton hates it. Coretta Scott King is in favor of it. And she doesn't particularly care much for Ronald Reagan's economic policies either. So, you know, his Coretta Scott King leading this organization are full of people who she's had some influence over appointing but others that she hasn't. But she tries to work with everyone. I mean, it's pretty much, you know, noted in her career that she will work with people from all kinds of political persuasions and try to sort of win them over to her sort of side. The commission decides, you know, in essence what it's going to do is focus on King's dream. And that's where the title, the slogan, the promotional slogan, Living the Dream comes from. And they cook that up with advice from an advertising group. You know, they go and get sort of advice from corporate advertising and they come up with this. Andrew Young is involved. He particularly likes this. And so what they want to do is attract as many Americans as possible to the holiday to have a day that is inspirational and uplifting. One that focuses on, you know, really the high point of King's career. You know, his I have a dream speech, which, you know, is recognized as being a unifying speech for most people. And, you know, they send out, the commission sends out like how to observe the holiday kits, information, but also they have these restrictions as well. Like in the parades, they're, you're not supposed to lobby for single issue agendas. So things like, for example, just anti-abortion, for example, that kind of thing. So there are restrictions on, well, there are guidelines, you know, and the guideline. And what I, what I detected too was there was a real emphasis on King's non-violence. And I think a little bit of a downplaying or very much downplaying if his critique of economic inequality, militarism and racism as well. So the commission goes for this, the widest possible audience, but being very careful to identify King as the reason for the holiday, but to not make it a black holiday, right, a holiday only observed by African-American. So one of the things you argue in your book, Daniel, is that you said the holiday both canonized and de-radicalized King, which is, I think, what you were just talking about. And I'm wondering if we could dig into that a bit further, because I think it is one of the major critiques that we've heard of both the holiday, but also in general the way Dr. Martin Luther King is remembered by many Americans, that he's remembered primarily for that dream of integration, brotherhood, non-violence, I have a dream, and not, and forgotten or ignored or downplayed is his much more radical critique of American capitalism, of militarism, of racism, of all those things. And so I'm wondering what you think, you know, looking at it as a whole, like how would you put the holiday in that mix in terms of the work, the political or cultural work it's done in shaping our memory of Dr. King, and in shaping our understanding more generally of the civil rights era and of political change in the United States, right, how to, you know, that balance between canonizing and de-radicalizing. Where do you think, you know, how would you explore that further? So when the holidays first observed and it's the emphasis is on the dream and popularity, in 1987 the emphasis is to connect the holiday with the bicentennial of the constitution celebrations, because so there's this real emphasis on identifying King as someone who fulfilled the rights of the constitution and that democracy is non-violent and, you know, basically, I mean King is a kind of an all American hero. Now the criticism of that, and it comes from people like Jesse Jackson and Vincent Harding as well, is that King's not assassinated for dreaming, he's assassinated for challenging racism, for challenging the economic status quo, and so that the holiday ignores all of this, and particularly his post-1965, his post-1965 activism, which as I mentioned before, he is really, you know, critical of the Vietnam War, but also his poor people, the poor people's campaign of 1968, the housing campaign in Chicago, where he really, you know, after the voting rights act had been done in 1965, switches gears, or at least makes more prominent, his economic critique. Now the holiday is, you know, accused, and the organizer of the holiday, accused of ignoring this, and even within the commission and its sort of internal files, you know, Coretta Scott King says we downplayed some issues of controversy, because we didn't want to make this a controversial celebration. In 1986, it was all about celebrating parades, marches, concerts, and the like. From then on, there is always a little more protest, there's more, you know, emphasis on people setting up soup kitchens, painting homes for the, painting homes, fixing houses for the homeless, and these kind of activities. So there is an early recognition that some of King's activism is being neglected. Now, if you think about it, you know, in the 70s, that period after, you know, King's sort of 1965 to 1968 period in the 70s and the early 70s, he's really criticized for his radicalism. In the 80s, it's kind of ignored. So I guess that some civil rights veterans and activists want to, you know, re-embrace that. So, yeah, so that, but you know, I think working with the commission in the Reagan era, Coretta Scott King, I think was doing probably the best that she could, given the constraints and sort of ideological sort of the ideals held by, you know, many people at the time. So what you, we're just talking about, I mean, I think for many people today, there's an association between King Holiday and a day of service. Right. It's been sort of marketed or framed as, you know, get, become engaged in civic volunteerism in some way. So when does that happen in other debates about shifting from a living the dream to a day of service kind of framing for the holiday? Yeah, so that really happens in the Clinton era. And so when, when Reagan sort of his term ends, George Bush has, you know, for years where he oversees the King Holiday. And look, he's more interested in the King Holiday than Ronald Reagan. I mean, Ronald Reagan was essentially forced, you know, due to political necessity to sign the King Holiday Act. People around him said, if you don't sign this, it's a very, very bad signal to Black America. And at a time where we, you know, you are unwinding some of the gains of the civil rights movement. I mean, this is the big contest, you know, because Reagan says King opposed affirmative action and, you know, all children should be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin. Therefore, you know, affirmative action is judging people by the color of their skin. Now we know, I think that Martin Luther King did, you know, did approve of affirmative action. He writes about it in his final book Chaos and Community. So what the tussle is about is, has the civil rights movement finished? Is, does Martin Luther King Day mean that the movement's over? That this is the final exclamation mark for the movement? Well, some people say it's, it's, you know, people like Jesse Jackson, John Lewis and Harris Warford say that the movement kind of isn't over. And in fact, you know, we can use the King holiday to continue some of the ideals and the programs of, of the movement. And Karota Scott King too, by the way, her overarching ambition is to re, to, to create the first nonviolent society in history in the United States. That's what she says she wants to use the holiday for. So it's a very grand ambition. Now with the Bush era, he embraces the holiday more than Reagan. He promotes, he extends the life of the commission. He gives it funding, which it had never had. And by the way, that's significant. Like the commission was just sort of bumping along on like, you know, a few donations. Whereas the bicentennial of the Constitution commission had $12 million for essentially one year of program. So there's this disparity between the way the commission is viewed and the holiday and the like. Now Bill Clinton comes along and he has a national service agenda, right? So he wants to use community service as a way to kind of fill the gaps. I think that the welfare system in America does not meet people's needs. And I think in the age of, you know, after the Cold War, the fall of Berlin Wall, kind of the idea of big government was very much on the nose with a lot of American voters and through the Reagan economic period and the Bush period. So Clinton sort of has this, you know, new Democrat third way kind of ethos where he wants to demonstrate that he cares about the poor. He identifies with them, like having come from an underprivileged background himself. And he also really identifies with the civil rights movement, you know, Little Rock Arkansas is near where he grew up and he really seeks to hitch his political wagon to both civil rights memorialization but also this idea of community volunteerism. And in his first term, in the first two years of his term, he brings in a national community service act where he found AmeriCorps and the National Commission for Service, the CNCS, I'll forget the full name right now. But, and he says in his autobiography that this is something that he's most proud of, you know, and, you know, it's often overlooked, I think, by scholars. But what the next logical step, I suppose, in terms of the holiday is to connect the holiday to Clinton's service agenda. And that's where people like Harris Warford and John Lewis come in and they say, and Harris Warford had been, I think they've both been in the Peace Corps, Harris Warford had been in the Peace Corps. So the idea is that there's going to be a Peace Corps in America, in American cities. So that's AmeriCorps and then they're going to connect that to the King Holiday. And so in 1994, the King Holiday and Service Act goes through Congress, it's passed, again over the objections of Jesse Helms. He's still around sort of poking, you know, trying to needle the commission. And I consider this to be the greatest, the commission's greatest, its high point, because it also gets funding and it's going to have half a million dollars a year of funding to do programs. And the idea is that Americans will be involved in community service. And the drum major instinct sermon that King gave the 4th of February, 1968, two months before he died, that is the inspiration. So he says, you know, if you want to be great, wonderful. If you want to be recognized wonderful. But the way to do, to live righteously, is to serve. Right. And that's where that picks up on. Right. Let me ask you about, you know, you just talked about the high point of the commission. Switch gears and talk about kind of maybe the low point of the demise of the commission. And you tell this fascinating story in the book that it comes from a very unexpected direction, right? The Dexter King, who is one of them, with the King Jr. Sons in the mid 90s, really makes a move to take over the holiday, take control over the holiday, to take control over the commission. And particularly to insist that the family should have the right to control completely the way King's words and images are used and shouldn't be like be able to copyright write his words and image. And I'm wondering if you can tell us a bit about that episode and what kind of impact that has had on the holiday and its celebration in the United States. Right. So after, yes, I mean the commission has this great moment and then in late 1994 and around that time Coretta Scott King decides she will step down from the King's centre, which is the centre in Atlanta. And it's the one that you can go and visit and where he and Coretta are buried or interred. The, when she steps down, Dexter Scott King sort of steps up. Right. And he has a different vision. He's younger. He's interested in intellectual property. He's interested in internet technology. And he recognises that there's quite a bit of value, economic value in these assets. So kind of debate breaks out about whether who owns King's words, who has the right to profit from them. And, you know, and it is the King family, in essence, that, you know, via the King estate they own King's words. Right. And this is fairly, I suppose, common sense in a way. I mean the estate owns the words. But what happens is the copyright is enforced more vigorously. And Dexter decides and he's a member of the commission. So he's a member of the commission. He leads the King's centre and he also heads the King estate. So he's in charge of three or, you know, deeply involved with three of these major King organisations. And what he does is, in meetings in 1995, is he really calls into question the existence of the commission. He sees the commission as the threat to, I suppose, the fundraising capabilities of the King's centre. But also, I think more clearly, he doesn't quite say this, I think it's a fundraising threat to the King estate. So I say that he uses, you know, kind of neoliberal economic practices to profit from the copyrights. You know, I have a drained copyright and all the other words. So what I mean by that is that he wants to eliminate competition. He wants to reduce the amount of money that is spent on, you know, the King legacy via, you know, the spending on the King commission. The King centre had 70 employees at the time. And what he does is he cuts back the staff numbers at the King centre and attacks the King commission from within. And what happens is Corel Scott King sort of takes his side, really. You know, she's wanting to get out. She thinks he has a vision. But the other commissioners, they have a debate, you know, and it's the most disharmonious moment of the commission's existence. I mean, before that it had been fairly harmonious. But then there are these kind of acrimonious debates within the commission in 1995. And without Corel Scott King's support, the commission, you know, it's lost its sort of its key back as well. Corel sort of says, well, with Dexter as a member of the King family, if he heads the commission, it will be, it will be, you know, he's still part of the King family. But in Congress, those who are on the commission who are sort of also in Congress say, no, but Corel, you are the one with the respect in Congress. Like you are the one who we all know you've been there, you know, since 1954, 55, you know. And in Dexter's an unknown quantity. And people also kind of some civil rights veterans, again, Jose Williams, Jesse Jackson and like John Lewis say, really profiting, you know, and then eventually this is what happens is the commission is closed. And then it sort of closes itself rather sort of quickly. And then the King estate led by Dexter puts the King papers on sale at Sotheby's, you know, and then, you know, and eventually I think Atlanta pays $32 million for those. So there's a great windfall eventually. But I think this really detracts from the King message. And also the other thing is Dexter says, I want to market my father like Coca-Cola. And they are his words. And, you know, this sort of flies in the face of the fact that the night before he died, King was lobbying for a boycott of Coca-Cola. But Dexter wants to take advantage of, you know, a new world trade organization, you know, copyright agreement that means intellectual property is protected all around the world. And he wants to use that sort of to put it on the internet and, you know, make global profits. So, you know, at a time when this commissioners have this great success with the new funding and the Service Act, it's sort of decimated from within. And I think that that detracts from the message and unleashes an ugly debate. At the same time, Bill Clinton has this one America dialogue on race and multiculturalism in America. Yeah. Yeah, so let's take this up to today. I mean, we're, you know, in a moment now where, you know, thinking about what the King holiday means and what it signifies in the era of the Black Lives Matter movement, which is viewed as a, you know, continuation of the Black freedom struggle, a different phrase of the Black freedom struggle in the United States right now, as I'm sure you know, there's a lot of political debate about what's called critical race theory and essentially how history is taught and remembered in our schools. And I'm wondering what you, you know, when you look at the King holiday, what, you know, how does it matter today? Why does it matter today? What does it signify today? What kind of, how should we look at what it's doing in our contemporary moment? Look, I think in 2015 there was a big kind of a moment in the King holiday when Black Lives Matter activists disrupted King holiday parades and pulpits and really protested against really contemporary problems, you know, police brutality, the violence, you know, that, you know, a lot of, you know, killings, people like Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, these, these killings really turbocharged Black Lives Matter and that influenced the King holiday and the attitude was, you know, we need to be in the streets, we need to be protesting contemporary issues, not just remembering the past, you know, not just remembering, you know, saying prayers in church and remembering the past, that was the, some of the, the thinking. So I think it's kind of reinvigorated the holiday and I think the subsequent debate about Confederate memorials, you know, in 2020 especially, and made the King holiday increasingly relevant and I think we can see it as a precursor to some of this, the debate that's happening today, like who do, you know, Americans want to memorialize? Is it Robert E. Lee or is it Martin Luther King? And this is one thing with, you know, when the states follow the federal government's lead and particularly in the south and they have, you know, holiday for Martin Luther King, they, some of the states join it together with Robert E. Lee and, and even in Virginia, Lee Jackson Day and it is a bit of a contradictory message and I think I'm understating it by, by, you know, by saying that. So the debate about, you know, particularly we saw in Richmond, Virginia, you know, how many, you know, Confederate statues does, you know, not how many, but should the south, should other places have Confederate statues? I think it's, I think it's part of the same conversation and I think, you know, when King was placed on southern calendars, it was a real challenge to that Confederate memorialization. So I see the King holiday still as a part of that debate. Then, you know, so, and I think the service activities as well, although, you know, they, you know, they do come into criticism, you know, because people say, well, just serving, painting a school one day a year, you know, what's that, that doesn't really change that, you know, you know, what some people perceive as fundamental, you know, underlying problems. Right, right. Yeah. So as we're coming to a close tonight, I'd love to hear, what's your most memorable way you've ever celebrated Martin Luther King Day and what kinds of recommendations would you have to listeners and viewers about how they might best honor the legacy of Dr. King on, on Martin Luther King Day? So, I mean, as an Australian, we don't, we don't observe King Day here, Martin Luther King Day here, although King is, you know, he is memorialized there and about. So there's a statue of him in, at the university where I work, a mural of him not too far away. And so, you know, but I'm always, it's always on my radar, but the, the most memorable King Day I had was, I think in 2012 when I, I flew to Atlanta for, to do research, but also to experience the King Holiday myself. And so I went to Atlanta. It was freezing, hats off to anybody who gets out in a, a King Holiday parade in snow and ice. I was really quite, quite shocked at how cold it was. And, but look, it was wonderful. I went to the new, the Ebenezer Horizon Baptist Church. I think Raphael Warnock was actually the preacher. And he's something he said, still sticks in my mind. And he said, in, you know, in Congress, if Republicans and Democrats can't sit together, how do we expect the bloods and the crypts to sit together? It was a memorable line. And there are other speakers as well, the parades. And then I had the good fortune to coming to Atlanta because it was covered in snow and ice. I had to wait in LA for a plane. And one morning at the hotel, you know, at breakfast, I met CT Vivian who was waiting, you know, civil rights veteran who was waiting to get to Atlanta as well. It was one of the most fortuitous meetings I've ever had in my life. And he was wonderfully gracious. And he allowed me to interview him in the hotel, which we did in the foyer. And it was amazing the respect that people paid. Once they, people saw what was happening, people came out and, you know, the interview was pretty hopeless because everyone came to, everyone was buzzing around, sort of saying hello and, you know, paying their respects. But he invited me to his house in Atlanta. And so that was very memorable as well. So, I'm a big advocate for, you know, if you write history to try and experience, you know, go to the places that you write about. I also took, you know, got on a Greyhound bus and went round to Birmingham, Selma, Memphis, and tried to see as much as I could, you know, so that I really, you know, could experience what I was writing about. Because the way I liked to write history. Right. All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing your work with us tonight. We've been with Dr. King coming, the author of Living the Dream, the Contested History of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Want to thank everyone who has been watching and wish you all a very happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Thank you. Thank you.