The Limits of Master Narratives in History
Textbooks: An Analysis of Representations
of Martin Luther King, Jr.
DERRICK P. ALRIDGE
University of Georgia
In this study, I argue that American history textbooks present discrete, heroic, one-
dimensional, and neatly packaged master narratives that deny students a complex,
realistic, and rich understanding of people and events in American history. In mak-
ing this argument, I examine the master narratives of Martin Luther King, Jr., in
high school history textbooks and show how textbooks present prescribed, oversimpli-
fied, and uncontroversial narratives of King that obscure important elements in
King’s life and thought. Such master narratives, I contend, permeate most history
textbooks and deny students critical lenses through which to examine, analyze, and
interpret social issues today. The article concludes with suggestions about how teachers
might begin to address the current problem of master narratives and offer alternative
approaches to presenting U.S. history.
During my years as a high school history teacher in the early 1990s, I
observed the extent to which history textbooks often presented simplistic,
one-dimensional interpretations of American history within a heroic and
celebratory master narrative.1 The ideas and representations in textbooks
presented a teleological progression from ‘‘great men’’ to ‘‘great events,’’
usually focusing on an idealistic evolution toward American democracy.
Reflecting on these years, I also remember how heavily teachers relied on
these textbooks, consequently denying students an accurate picture of the
complexity and richness of American history.
U.S. history courses and curricula are dominated by such heroic and
celebratory master narratives as those portraying George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson as the heroic ‘‘Founding Fathers,’’ Abraham Lincoln as
the ‘‘Great Emancipator,’’ and Martin Luther King, Jr., as the messianic
savior of African Americans. Often these figures are portrayed in isolation
from other individuals and events in their historical context. At the same
time, the more controversial aspects of their lives and beliefs are left out of
many history textbooks. The result is that students often are exposed to simplistic, one-dimensional, and truncated portraits that deny them a re-
alistic and multifaceted picture of American history. In this way, such texts
and curricula undermine a key purpose of learning history in the first
place: History should provide students with an understanding of the com-
plexities, contradictions, and nuances in American history, and knowledge
of its triumphs and strengths.2
In his highly regarded book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your
American History Textbook Got Wrong, James Loewen argued that ‘‘Textbooks
are often muddled by the conflicting desires to promote inquiry and to
indoctrinate blind patriotism’’ and that history is usually presented as ‘‘facts
to be learned,’’ free of controversy and contradictions between American
ideals and practice. According to Loewen, the simplistic and doctrinaire
content in most history textbooks contributes to student boredom and fails
to challenge students to think about the relationship of history to contem-
porary social affairs and life.3
Loewen’s argument is not new. In 1935, historian W. E. B. Du Bois also
noted the tendency of textbooks to promote certain master narratives while
leaving out differing or controversial information about historical figures
and events. As an example, Du Bois noted,
One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea
that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. We must not
remember that Daniel Webster got drunk but only remember that he
was a splendid constitutional lawyer. We must forget that George
Washington was a slave owner, or that Thomas Jefferson had mulatto
children, or that Alexander Hamilton had Negro blood, and simply
remember the things we regard as creditable and inspiring. The dif-
ficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as
an incentive and example; it paints perfect men and noble nations, but
it does not tell the truth.4
The dominance of master narratives in textbooks denies students a com-
plicated, complex, and nuanced portrait of American history. As a result,
students often receive information that is inaccurate, simplistic, and dis-
connected from the realities of contemporary local, national, and world
affairs. When master narratives dominate history textbooks, students find
history boring, predictable, or irrelevant. If we continue on this course of
presenting history to students, we risk producing a generation that does not
understand its history or the connection of that history to the contemporary
world. We also deny students access to relevant, dynamic, and often con-
troversial history or critical lenses that would provide them insight into the
dilemmas, challenges, and realities of living in a democratic society such as
the United States.In this article, I examine how textbooks present heroic, uncritical, and
celebratory master narratives of history. In doing so, I illustrate the master
narratives that history textbooks present of one of America’s most heroic
icons, Martin Luther King, Jr. I illuminate how high school history text-
books promote King through three master narratives: King as a messiah,
King as the embodiment of the civil rights movement, and King as a mod-
erate. Having shown how textbook master narratives portray King, I con-
clude by suggesting how teachers might move beyond the limitations of
these narratives to offer students a more complex, accurate, and realistic
view of figures and events in American history.5
METHODOLOGY AND TEXTBOOK SELECTION
Literary analysis, a primary method in intellectual history, is the main
methodological approach used for this study. According to historian Ri-
chard Beringer, literary analysis ‘‘involves reading source material and
drawing evidence from that material to be used in supporting a point of
view or thesis.’’6 In most cases, such source material includes poetry, novels,
or short stories, but it may also include nonfictional material. Beringer
presents a straightforward approach to conducting literary analysis: (1) read
the literature, (2) note the themes, (3) discuss the themes, and (4) support
your conclusion by example. In this study, high school history textbooks
serve as the source material. The focal point of this investigation is the
representation of Martin Luther King, Jr., in the textbooks. King was cho-
sen as a subject of analysis because he is a widely recognized figure in
American history whose image has come to epitomize ideals of democracy,
equality, and freedom in America.
To explore how contemporary textbooks represent King, I examine six
popular and widely adopted American history textbooks: The American
Pageant (2002) by Thomas A. Bailey, David M. Kennedy, and Lizabeth Co-
hen; American Odyssey: The United States in the 20th Century (2004) by Gary
B. Nash; America: Pathways to the Present (2005) by Andrew Cayton, Linda
Reed, Elisabeth Perry, and Allan M. Winkler; The Americans (2005) by
Gerald A. Danzer et al.; The American Nation: A History of the United States
(2003) by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes; and The American People:
Creating a Nation and a Society (2004) by Gary B. Nash, Julie Jeffrey, et al.7
According to the American Textbook Council, America: Pathways to the
Present, American Odyssey, and The Americans are widely used in American
high schools. Other textbook studies cite The American People: Creating a
Nation and a Society as a popular textbook. I chose The American Nation
because of its focus on political history and because it is a ‘‘bestseller’’ for
Allyn & Bacon. The American Pageant has long been a popular textbook for high-level and advanced placement students in high school.8 In addition,
the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation cited The American Nation, America:
Pathways to the Present, American Odyssey, and The Americans as four widely
used textbooks in U.S. schools.9
Highly respected historians wrote the textbooks examined in this study,
and the information in them likely represents a broad spectrum of the ideas
that are being conveyed about King in American classrooms.10 Further-
more, historian Van Gosse, who has conducted studies on American history
textbooks, stated that textbooks are ‘‘remarkably similar in what is and what
is not included; how an incident, person, or occasion is described; and in
the sequence used to establish relationships among events.’’11 Gosse’s as-
sertion about the similarity of content among history textbooks supports my
claim that these six textbooks may be considered representative of a much
larger selection of high school history texts.
KING AS A MESSIAH
One way that textbooks package information for students is through the
presentation of messianic master narratives. A messianic master narrative
highlights one exceptional individual as the progenitor of a movement, a
leader who rose to lead a people. The idea of messianism has long been a
part of American culture and religion. Rooted in Judeo-Christian tradition
and beliefs, the concept of a deliverer coming to Earth to free the masses
from evil or oppression has been very appealing to Americans because of
the predominance of Judeo-Christian beliefs and traditions in the United
States.12
Perhaps more than any other figure in American history, the preacher
has historically and symbolically been viewed as a messianic figure in the
African American community. Historian John Blassingame traced this phe-
nomenon to the institution of slavery, noting, ‘‘The Black preacher had
special oratorical skills and was master of the vivid phrase, folk poetry, and
picturesque words.’’13 Given the resonance of preachers as messianic fig-
ures, it is understandable that Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., evoked a
messianic image during his lifetime, one that the media and textbook pub-
lishers continue to promote today.14
King understood the power of symbolism and metaphor and purpose-
fully evoked messianic imagery and symbolism in placing the struggle of
African Americans within the context of biblical narratives. During his
childhood in the 1930s and 1940s, young King came under the influence of
his minister father, Daddy King, in Ebenezer Baptist Church, and many
other great preachers throughout the South. These men influenced him
with the biblical style of storytelling. The preaching that King was exposed
to as a child was only one to two generations removed from the ‘‘slave preaching’’ that black Americans heard during slavery, which was full of the
passion and pain of a people in bondage.15 King studied and practiced the
language, mannerisms, and locution of the black preachers and began to
reconfigure the religious metaphors and symbols for the struggles of his
generation.16
King’s use of biblical language and imagery in both the spoken and
written word also promoted a messianic tone and message that was ap-
pealing to a predominantly Christian nation such as United States during
the 1950s and 1960s. His merger of messianic and patriotic symbolism
appealed to America’s patriotic sensibilities and its dominant Christian de-
mography. King, like many political and religious leaders before and after
him, understood the power of transcending racial ideological barriers by
attempting to unify people under American and Judeo-Christian symbol-
ism.17 His references to the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Con-
stitution, the Emancipation Proclamation, and a ‘‘promissory note,’’
juxtaposed with biblical references to ‘‘trials and tribulations,’’ ‘‘brother-
hood,’’ and valleys, hills, and ‘‘crooked places’’ helped illuminate the images
of Moses and the Exodus, Abraham Lincoln, and the Founders.
Given many historians’ focus on King as the central figure in the civil
rights movement, it is understandable that messianic symbolism continues
to be associated with King. For example, the titles of some of the most
popular books on King allude to messianic metaphor and symbolism. They
include David Garrow’s Bearing the Cross; Stephen Oates’s Let the Trumpet
Sound; Taylor Branch’s trilogy Parting the Waters, A Pillar of Fire, and At
Canaan’s Edge; and Michael Dyson’s I May Not Get There with You.
18
History textbooks today also use messianic symbolism in portraying King
as a messiah or ‘‘deliverer’’ during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Bir-
mingham campaign, and the March on Washington, and on the day before
King was killed. For instance, four of the six textbooks portray King as an
‘‘unlikely champion’’ who would lead his people to the ‘‘promised land’’
during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The unlikely champion reference
parallels Judeo-Christian stories of Moses, the unlikely deliverer who was
the son of an Egyptian pharaoh, and Jesus, the unlikely deliverer who was
the son of a humble carpenter. The American Pageant, for example, states,
‘‘barely twenty-seven years old, King seemed an unlikely champion of the
downtrodden and disenfranchised.’’ The American Odyssey says of King,
‘‘short in stature and gentle in manner, King was at the time only 27 years
old.’’ The four texts referred to above also emphasize King’s youth or his
privileged background as attributes that made him an ‘‘unlikely deliverer’’
of the Montgomery Movement.19
Three of the six textbooks identify King’s December 5, 1955, speech at
Holt Street Baptist Church as a significant event during the boycott.20 The
emphasis on this particular speech further reinforces the focus on King as a messiah, because the speech is replete with symbolic messianic messages
and metaphors of a young, unlikely but charismatic savior. American Odyssey
provides the most extensive coverage of the speech, including a picture of
King delivering the speech, and quotes the following passage:
There comes a time when people get tired. We are here this evening
to say to those who have mistreated us so long that we are tired—tired
of being segregated and humiliated, tired of being kicked about by the
brutal feet of oppression . . . If you will protest courageously and yet
with dignity and Christian love, in the history books that are written in
future generations, historians will have to pause and say ‘‘there lived a
great people—a black people—who injected a new meaning and dig-
nity into the veins of civilization.’’ This is our challenge and our over-
whelming responsibility.21
King’s words reflected that of a young messiah trying to persuade his
oppressed people to endure their trials and tribulations in the short term
because their cause was just and because they could expect a better future.
Such portrayals evoke the imagery of Jesus and Moses leading the masses
and encouraging their people to endure temporary hardships for the long-
term benefits of reaching paradise or the ‘‘promised land.’’
Like many of King’s speeches, the Holt Street speech shows King in the
messianic mission of delivering ‘‘God-inspired’’ words to the masses. Amer-
ica: Pathways, The Americans, and The American People also quote from this
speech, reinforcing King’s strong words pertaining to Christian love and
the liberation of the masses from the ‘‘brutal feet of oppression.’’ The Amer-
icans provides a block quotation from the speech and further reiterates its
messianic symbolism, stating that ‘‘the impact of King’s speech—the rhythm
of his words, the power of his rising and falling voice—brought people to
their feet.’’22 The textbooks’ focus on a ‘‘messianic King,’’ even during his
early life, denies students an opportunity to see King as a real person and as
a young man who develops into a leader over time. Students also lose the
opportunity to study the community leadership in Birmingham before
King and to learn about the many ordinary citizens, whom King called his
‘‘foot soldiers,’’ who also played significant roles in the civil rights move-
ment.
All the textbooks that I examined also promote messianic imagery in
their presentations of the Birmingham campaign and the 1963 March on
Washington. For instance, most of the textbooks evoke messianic symbolism
of the apostle Paul’s letters to the masses by printing, in part, King’s ex-
planations to Christian ministers for breaking segregation laws and advo-
cating for social justice. American Odyssey, for example, uses messianic
symbolism by preceding King’s ‘‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’’ with the following statement: ‘‘Representing the opposition was King, who timed the
demonstrations to include his arrest on Good Friday, the Christian holy day
marking the death of Jesus.’’23 Three other textbooks also provide block
quotations from King’s ‘‘Birmingham Letter.’’ America: Pathways sets up its
section about the Birmingham Letter and campaign by discussing King’s
answer to a reporter who questioned him about how long he would stay in
Birmingham. America: Pathways states that King ‘‘drew on a biblical story
and told them he would remain until ‘Pharaoh lets God’s people go.’ ’’24
While The American Pageant and The American People both discuss the
Birmingham campaign, neither mentions King’s letter. However, they more
than compensate for their minimal messianic symbolism of King in Bir-
mingham with their overly messianic portrayals of King at the March on
Washington. The American Pageant and The American People further illumi-
nate this imagery by providing a color picture of King waving before the
multitude of people. The textbook images of King are reminiscent of Hol-
lywood portrayals of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus is often
portrayed with outstretched arms before a multitude of his followers.25
America: Pathways quotes extensively from the ‘‘I Have a Dream’’ speech
and provides messianic symbolism by featuring a photo of a long proces-
sional of marchers, also symbolic of the crowds that gathered to hear Jesus’
Sermon on the Mount. American Odyssey, The Americans, and The American
Nation discuss and highlight the March on Washington to a lesser extent but
still evoke similar examples of symbolism and imagery. However, The Amer-
ican Nation largely resists the more flowery or symbolic messianic language
of the other texts.
Most of the textbooks address the last two major campaigns of King’s
life—the march to Selma and his final days in Memphis. In all cases, the
authors continue a type of messianic passion play, concluding with King’s
famous ‘‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop’’ speech. The Selma campaign was
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s (SCLC) march from
Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery to further heighten the national intensity
of the movement and to help push the Voting Rights Act of 1965 through
Congress. American Odyssey provides a half-page black-and-white photo of a
long processional of people marching from over the horizon, approaching
from the Edmund Pettus Bridge outside of Selma on the way to the state
capital of Montgomery, Alabama.26 This may easily be seen as symbolic of
Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea.
All the texts that mention the Selma march deliver an Exodus-type nar-
rative in which King’s last ‘‘plague,’’ the march, eventually forced a
‘‘Pharonic’’ President Johnson to push for the passage of the Voting Rights
Act of 1965. Moreover, the authors of America: Pathways believed that John-
son’s use of the language and symbolism of the civil rights movement was so
important that they quoted a passage from a speech given by the presidentshortly after the Selma march. America: Pathways quotes Johnson’s use of the
civil rights anthem: ‘‘And . . . we . . . shall . . . overcome.’’27 Like the biblical
pharaoh who eventually acknowledged the Hebrew God in the Exodus, The
Americans’ portrayal of Johnson’s co-option of ‘‘We shall overcome’’ con-
jures up the messianic story of Moses in the Exodus and parallels Pharaoh
Rameses’s acknowledgement of the power of Moses’ God—in this case, the
momentum and energy of the civil rights movement.
Another symbolic messianic moment that four of the six textbooks
present is King’s legendary ‘‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop’’ speech,
delivered on April 3, 1968, the night before his assassination. The Americans,
America: Pathways, The American People, and American Odyssey provide
quotations from this final speech, delivered while King was in Memphis
helping striking garbage workers. The Americans also alludes to the
night before King’s death as a kind of Gethsemane28 for King. It states
that ‘‘Dr. King seemed to sense that death was near,’’29 while American
Odyssey reports,
The night before his death King spoke at a church rally. He might
have had a premonition when he said, ‘‘We’ve got some difficult days
ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the
mountaintop . . . I may not get there with you, but I want you to know
tonight . . . that we as a people will get to the promised land!’’30
The messianic master narratives of King in textbooks make him seem like
a superhuman figure who made few (if any) mistakes and who was beloved
by his Christian brethren. Textbooks largely fail to present King as expe-
riencing any personal weaknesses, struggles, or shortcomings, nor do they
convey the tensions that he encountered among other civil rights leaders
and some Christian organizations. A more humanizing portrayal of King
and the events surrounding him would address these issues and help us
move beyond his larger-than-life image. Taking King out of the messianic
master narrative and presenting him within the context of his full humanity
provides a much more accurate, historically contextualized image of the
man and what he stood for.
A critical presentation of King would provide insight into the life of
an ordinary man who, along with others, challenged extraordinary
forces and institutions to gain full citizenship rights for all. Such a strat-
egy presents a more complex, genuine, and interesting knowledge base
that would likely excite students about history. It might also make history
‘‘real’’ to students in a way that will help them see themselves as ordinary
citizens who could bring about positive and progressive social change in
American society.
The Limits of Master Narratives in History Textbooks 669
668 Teachers College Record
The Limits of Master Narratives in History Textbooks 667
666 Teachers College Record
The Limits of Master Narratives in History Textbooks 665
664 Teachers College Record
The Limits of Master Narratives in History Textbooks 663
Teachers College Record Volume 108, Number 4, April 2006, pp. 662–686
Copyright r by Teachers College, Columbia University
0161-4681
Notes
1 I use the term master narrative to refer to a dominant and overarching theme or template
that presents the literature, history, or culture of a society. For a discussion of the term as used
within historical studies, see Jeffrey Cox and Shelton Stromquist (Eds.), Contesting the Master
Narrative: Essays in Social History (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1998).
2 James Banks has argued that textbooks play a major role in presenting history to stu-
dents, mainly because teachers tend to teach directly from their texts. As a result, textbooks
influence tremendously students’ views on American history. See James Banks, Teaching Strat-
egies for the Social Studies (New York: Longman, 1990), 236–37.
3 James W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got
Wrong (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 14–15.
4 W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860–1880 (New York: Touchstone,
1995), 722.
5 It is beyond the scope of this article to provide a detailed account of how teachers might
teach about King in American history. In another essay, however, I extend on this study of high
school history textbooks and discuss specifically and in some detail how teachers might rethink
teaching about King and the civil rights movement. In that essay, I also provide specific ped-
agogical examples of how to move beyond the master narratives found in many history text-
books. See Derrick P. Alridge, ‘‘Teaching Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights
Movement in High School History Courses: Rethinking Content and Pedagogy,’’ in Freedom’s
Bittersweet Song: Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement, ed. J. B. Armstrong, S. H. Hult, H.
B. Roberson, and R. Y. Williams, 3–17 (New York: Routledge, 2002).
6 Ibid., 17.
7 David M. Kennedy et al., The American Pageant (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002);
Gary B. Nash, American Odyssey: The 20th Century and Beyond (New York: McGraw Hill, 2004);
Andrew Cayton et al., America: Pathways to the Present (Needham, MA: Pearson/Prentice Hall,
2005); Gerald A. Danzer et al., The Americans (Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 2005); Mark C.
Carnes and John A. Garraty, The American Nation: A History of the United States, vols. 1 & 2 (New
York: Longman, 2003); Gary B. Nash et al., The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society
(New York: Pearson/Longman, 2004).
8 See Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me, 17.
9 See Thomas B. Fordham, http://www.edexcellence.net/institute/publication/publication.
cfm?id=329&pubsubid=1020. It should be noted that my study examines the most recent
widely used or popular textbooks.
10 For data from the American Textbook Council, see http://www.historytextbooks.org/
adoptions.htm. For studies that cite The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society as a
popular textbook, see Van Gosse, ‘‘Consensus and Contradiction in the Textbook Treatments
of the Sixties,’’ The Journal of American History (September, 1995), 668 and Sundiata Keita Cha-
Jua and Robert E. Weems, Jr. ‘‘Coming into Focus: The Treatment of African Americans in
Post-Civil War United States History Texts,’’ The Journal of American History (March 1994), 1418.
For information regarding The American Nation, See http://www.ablongman.com/catalog/aca
demic/product/1,4096,0321052870,00.html. Loewen discusses the use of The American Pageant
in high level and advanced placement high school courses, see Loewen, 17.
11 Van Gosse, ‘‘Consensus and Contradiction in Textbook Treatments of the Sixties,’’
Journal of American History 82 (1995): 658. As a point of clarification, note that Gosse’s study is
an analysis of contemporary textbooks’ information about the sixties rather than an exami-
nation of sixties textbooks. His statement, quoted above, I argue, is therefore applicable to the
contemporary textbooks examined in this study. A limitation of my study is perhaps the small
sample of textbooks used for analysis. However, as mentioned earlier in the article, the purpose
of my analysis is a critique of the representation of King and his ideas in six current textbooks
in the United States rather than a full-blown examination of U.S. high school textbooks. My
analysis of the six textbooks written by some of the country’s leading historians and textbook
writers provides some important insights into how King is portrayed in many high school
history textbooks. Moreover, a smaller sample allowed me to more critically explore imagery,
metaphor, and symbolism that in a larger sample would have received only a surface analysis,
given the space limitations imposed by a journal article.
12 The term messiah is derived from the Hebrew massiah, meaning anointed. In the tra-
dition of the ancient Hebrews, it signified the belief in a future great deliverer—a priest, king,
or prophet who would come with a special mission from God. Messianic language and imagery
are especially prevalent among oppressed groups but also exist among oppressors who at onetime in their own history were the oppressed. Americans, many of whom belong to groups that
were persecuted either long ago in Europe or more recently in this country, are especially
receptive to messianic symbolism and imagery. See The American Heritage College Dictionary,
Third edition; Wilson J. Moses, Black Messiahs and Uncle Toms: Social and Literary Manipulations of
a Religious Myth (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1982), 2–16. See
also Albert B. Cleage, Jr. The Black Messiah (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968).
13 John Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1982). Also see S. P. Fullwider, The Mind and Mood of Black America: 20th
Century Thought (Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press, 1969), 26–28.
14 The identification of a personal savior-messiah, prophet, or Mahdi is especially prevalent
in African American politico-religious literature, as exemplified in such works as David Walker’s
Appeal (1829), Albert J. Cleage’s The Black Messiah (1968), and W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Souls of
Black Folk (1903). Blacks often applied religious and messianic imagery to their situation, and
many thought of themselves as ‘‘children of God’’ to be freed by a great deliverer. Nineteenth-
century figures such as Nat Turner, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and
Abraham Lincoln have historically represented the deliverers of the black race. In addition,
some whites attributed messianic symbolism to the black condition during the antebellum and
postbellum eras. Historian Wilson Moses pointed out, for instance, that white abolitionists
attributed messianic qualities to both the Union armies and the black race.
15 For a thorough examination of King’s use of language, see Keith D. Miller, Voice of
Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Its Sources (New York: The Free Press,
1992), 11–12.
16 Ibid., 112–158.
17 For example, religious leaders and politicians such as John Winthrop, Cotton Mather,
and Benjamin Rush; deists such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine;
and 20th-century conservatives such as Ronald Reagan understood the power of merging
Christian and patriotic symbols to energize and galvanize the masses. For an interesting dis-
cussion of King’s use of religious and patriotic secular symbolism, see Charles P. Henry, ‘‘De-
livering Daniel: The Dialectic of Ideology and Theology in the Thought of Martin Luther King,
Jr.,’’ Journal of Black Studies 17 (1987): 327–45.
18 Full titles and citations are as follows: David Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther
King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (New York: William Morrow, 1986);
Stephen Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Harper
Perennial Edition, 1994); Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–65 (New York:
Simon and & Schuster, 1998), and At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–1968 (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2006); and Michael Eric Dyson, I May Not Get There with You: The True
Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: The Free Press, 2000). For references to King as Moses and
for a discussion of the impact of King’s use of biblical narrative and preaching, see Richard
Lischer, ‘‘The Word that Moves: The Preaching of Martin Luther King, Jr.,’’ Theology Today 46
(1989): 169–82.
19 See Bailey, Kennedy, and Cohen, The American Pageant, 894. Similar portrayals of a
young messianic deliverer are found in Nash, American Odyssey, 676; Cayton et al., America:
Pathways, 938; Danzer et al., The Americans, 911; and The American Nation, 795. The American
People does not emphasize King’s youth.
20 Danzer et al., The Americans, 911; Nash, American Odyssey; and Nash and Jeffrey, The
American People, 921.
21 Nash, American Odyssey, 675.
22 Nash et al., The American People, 951 and Danzer et al, The Americans, 861.
23 Nash, American Odyssey, 685.
24 Cayton et al., American Pathways, 945.
25 See Kennedy et al., The American Pageant, 926; Nash et al., The American People, 974.
26 Nash, American Odyssey, 688.
27 Cayton et al., American Pathways, 953.
28 According to the Bible, Gethsemane was a garden where Jesus prayed and appealed to
God about his destiny to die as a savior for humankind.
29 Danzer et al., The Americans, 927.
30 Nash, American Odyssey, 695.
31 Historian Howard Zinn has been a crusader for the presentation of history that is
bottom-up rather than top-down. Top-down history is the history of ‘‘great men and women,’’
whereas bottom-up history is the history of the common people. See, for example, Howard
Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, 1492–Present (New York: HarperPerennial, 1995).
Historians James Davidson and Mark Lytle provide a good analysis of these historical view-
points, using the terms top-rail and bottom-rail in discussing top-down and bottom-up historical
approaches to writing history. See James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle, After the
Fact: The Art of Historical Detection (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), 177–211.
32 Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (1931; repr,. New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1951), v.
33 See Ivan Van Sertima, They Came before Columbus (New York: Random House, 1976).
34 See Peniel E. Joseph, ‘‘Waiting till the Midnight Hour: Reconceptualizing the Heroic
Period of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954–1965,’’ Souls (Spring 2000): 6–17; Van Gosse, 658–
69; Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, ‘‘Mobilizing Memory: Broadening Our View of the Civil-Rights
Movement,’’ The Chronicle Review: The Chronicle of Higher Education, sec. 2, July 7, 2001. For a
good discussion of the content and periodization of the civil rights movement and African
American history in secondary history textbooks, see James Anderson, ‘‘Secondary School
History Textbooks and the Treatment of Black History,’’ in The State of Afro-American History:
Past, Present, and Future, ed. Darlene Clarke Hine (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1986), 253–74.
35 Bailey, Kennedy, and Cohen, The American Pageant, 891–95, 934.
36 Cayton et al., America: Pathways, 928.
37 Danzer et al., The Americans, 928.
38 See Garraty and Carnes, Nation, 789–805.
39 Robert E. Weems, Jr. ‘‘African-American Consumer Boycotts during the Civil Rights
Era,’’ The Western Journal of Black Studies, 19, no. 1 (1995): 72–79.
40 For additional information about Ella Baker and other women activists in the move-
ment, see Charles Payne, ‘‘Ella Baker and Models of Social Change,’’ Signs: Journal of Women
and Society 14, no. 4 (1989): 885–99; LaVerne Gyant, ‘‘Passing the Torch: African American
Women in the Civil Rights Movement,’’ in The Civil Rights Movement, ed. Jack E. Davis (Malden,
MA: Blackwell, 2001), 130–44; Chana Kai Lee, For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000); John White, ‘‘‘Nixon Was the One’: Edgar Daniel
Nixon, the MIA and the Montgomery Bus Boycott,’’ in The Making of Martin Luther King and the
Civil Rights Movement, ed. Brian Ward and Tony Badger (London: Macmillan, 1996), 45–63.
41 Maternal frame of reference refers to the tendency of males in the civil rights movement to
relegate women to stereotypical roles as mother and child-bearer. In addition, some women
involved in the CRM, for instance, have argued that male leaders did not allow them to take
place in leadership roles, but rather relegated them to subsidiary roles. For discussion of this
idea, see M. Bahati Kuumba, Gender and Social Movements (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press,
2000), 1–19.
42 Myra Sadker, David Sadker, and Lynette Long, ‘‘Gender and Educational Equality,’’ in
Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives, ed. James A. Banks and Cherry A. McGee Banks
(Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1993), 111–28. The authors in this essay pointed out that ‘‘studies
show that bias free materials can have a positive influence and can encourage students at
684 Teachers College Recordvarious grade levels to change attitudes and behaviors as a result of their reading materials’’
(114).
43 Vincent Harding, There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America (New York:
Harcourt Brace, 1981), xviii–xix.
44 Ibid., xi–xxvi.
45 See Paul Rockwell, ‘‘Ward Connerly Perverts the Teachings of Dr. King,’’ The Daily
Californian, October 31, 1999. For a discussion of King’s views pertaining to affirmative action
programs for African Americans, see Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos
or Community? (New York: Harper & Row, 1967). Also see Mary Francis Berry, ‘‘Vindicating
Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Road to a Color-Blind Society,’’ Journal of Negro History 81 (1996):
137–44.
46 See Lentz Richard Lentz, Symbols, the News Magazines, and Martin Luther King (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), 31.
47 Ibid., 35.
48 Young states that King stated the following to him, ‘‘I depend on you to bring a certain
kind of common sense to staff meetings . . . I need you to take as conservative a position as
possible, then I can have plenty of room to come down in the middle wherever I want to.’’ See
Andrew Young, An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America (New
York: HarperCollins, 1996), 285.
49 See Michael Friedly and David Gallen, Martin Luther King, Jr.: The FBI File (New York:
Carroll & Graff Publishers, 1993), 37–58.
50 August Meier, ‘‘On the Role of Martin Luther King,’’ in Martin Luther King, Jr. and the
Civil Rights Movement, ed. David J. Garrow (New York: Carlson Publishing, 1989), 52–59.
51 Bailey, Kennedy, and Cohen, The American Pageant, The American Pageant, 926.
52 Cayton et al., America: Pathways, 974.
53 Many historians use King’s ‘‘Dream’’ speech as an example of King’s appeal to the
‘‘moderate center’’ and identify his shift of ideas to the left as beginning after the march on
Selma in 1965. However, James Farmer, founder of the Congress for Racial Equality, argued
that the March on Washington marked the beginning of the end of the civil rights movement.
While I am not willing to go that far, I do believe that the March on Washington was the
beginning of a shift in King’s thought to an open discussion, on a national level, of black civil
rights and issues of poverty. In fact, one can go back even further to some of King’s early
speeches at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church to find these connections. For a discussion of
Farmer’s position, see James Farmer, ‘‘The March on Washington: The Zenith of the Southern
Movement,’’ in New Directions in Civil Rights Studies, ed. Armstead L. Robinson and Patricia
Sullivan (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1991), 30–37.
54 Nash et al., The American People, 217.
55 Bailey, Kennedy, and Cohen, The American Pageant, The American Pageant, 932.
56 Nash et al., The American People, 955–58.
57 Ibid., 981.
58 Nash, American Odyssey, 695.
59 See Frontline: The Two Nations of Black America, prod. June Cross, 60 min., PBS video,
1998, videocassette.
60 Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here, 36. Also see Derrick P. Alridge,
‘‘Teaching Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement,’’ 11.
61 See Bailey, Kennedy, and Cohen, The American Pageant, 932–934.
62 Ibid.
63 Ibid.
64 Nash, American Odyssey, 692.
65 Ibid.
66 Garraty and Carnes, The American Nation, 839.
The Limits of Master Narratives in History Textbooks 685
The Limits of Master Narratives in History Textbooks 683
67 Cayton et al., America: Pathways, 837.
68 See photo and discussion in Clayborne Carson, ‘‘A ‘Common Solution’: Martin and
Malcolm’s Gulf was Closing but the Debate Lives On,’’ Emerge, February 1998, 44–53.
69 Presentism is the historian’s error of making generalizations based on events taken out
of historical context. For a discussion of this concept, see Derrick P. Alridge, ‘‘The Dilemmas,
Challenges, and Duality of an African-American Educational Historian,’’ Educational Researcher
32, no. 9 (December 2003): 25–34.
70 Michael Friedly and David Gallen, Martin Luther King, Jr.: The FBI File (New York:
Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1993), 20–65.
71 Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘‘Casualties of the Vietnam War: An Address by Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. to the Nation Institute.’’ Los Angeles, California, February 25, 1967. The
Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers, King Center, Atlanta, Georgia.
72 Primary source materials on King may be retrieved from the National Archives Web site
at http://www.archives.gov/research_room/jfk/house_select_comittee_report_references_mlk.
html and from the FBI’s Web site at http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/king.htm.
DERRICK P. ALRIDGE is associate professor of education at the University
of Georgia. His research interests include African American educational and
intellectual history and civil rights studies. He is currently writing The Ed-
ucational Thought of W. E. B. Du Bois: An Intellectual History for Teachers
College Press.
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