Jack Whitten

King’s Wish (Martin Luther’s Dream), 1968, Oil on canvas, 172.4 x 131.4 cm, Collection of the artist, © Courtesy the Jack Whitten Estate and Hauser & Wirth; Photo: John Berens

I Have a Dream

Commentary by

Jennifer Allen Craft

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Perhaps one of the most famous lines from all the prophets comes from Amos 5:24: ‘But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream’.

Amos’s words come in the midst of his indictment of an unfaithful and unjust Israel. The northern kingdom in which Amos preaches has created a society in which God’s commands to care for all people have been ignored. Instead, a wealth gap and a misremembering of God’s commands pervade Israel’s society.

Martin Luther King Jr. echoed Amos’s admonition in his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech and quoted the prophet in his ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail,’ recalling God’s commands to create societies that promote justice and care, and calling all people of the modern world to action.

In this painting, African American artist Jack Whitten responds to King’s speech with a brilliant and bold illumination of that dream. Each face that emerges from the abstract colourful surface of his canvas powerfully asserts itself in the context of the whole, its identity pronounced not by virtue of race alone, but in relationship to the whole composition and to one another.

The simultaneous chaos and beauty of this image reveals a central aspect of the prophetic promise and works powerfully on the emotions of the viewer. It is raw and material, even while it expresses a profound spiritual reality through its entrancingly bright palette. Amos speaks of justice in the mess of society, while the wild brushstrokes of Whitten suggest that in the mess of it all, there is still hope to be found. His image evokes a garden of colour, an Edenic space of promise that embodies the dream of justice.

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5 Hear this word which I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel:

2“Fallen, no more to rise,

is the virgin Israel;

forsaken on her land,

with none to raise her up.”

3For thus says the Lord God:

“The city that went forth a thousand

shall have a hundred left,

and that which went forth a hundred

shall have ten left

to the house of Israel.”

4For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel:

“Seek me and live;

5but do not seek Bethel,

and do not enter into Gilgal

or cross over to Beer-sheba;

for Gilgal shall surely go into exile,

and Bethel shall come to nought.”

6Seek the Lord and live,

lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph,

and it devour, with none to quench it for Bethel,

7O you who turn justice to wormwood,

and cast down righteousness to the earth!

8He who made the Pleiades and Orion,

and turns deep darkness into the morning,

and darkens the day into night,

who calls for the waters of the sea,

and pours them out upon the surface of the earth,

the Lord is his name,

9who makes destruction flash forth against the strong,

so that destruction comes upon the fortress.

10They hate him who reproves in the gate,

and they abhor him who speaks the truth.

11Therefore because you trample upon the poor

and take from him exactions of wheat,

you have built houses of hewn stone,

but you shall not dwell in them;

you have planted pleasant vineyards,

but you shall not drink their wine.

12For I know how many are your transgressions,

and how great are your sins—

you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe,

and turn aside the needy in the gate.

13Therefore he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time;

for it is an evil time.

14Seek good, and not evil,

that you may live;

and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you,

as you have said.

15Hate evil, and love good,

and establish justice in the gate;

it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts,

will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

16Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord:

“In all the squares there shall be wailing;

and in all the streets they shall say, ‘Alas! alas!’

They shall call the farmers to mourning

and to wailing those who are skilled in lamentation,

17and in all vineyards there shall be wailing,

for I will pass through the midst of you,”

says the Lord.

18Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!

Why would you have the day of the Lord?

It is darkness, and not light;

19as if a man fled from a lion,

and a bear met him;

or went into the house and leaned with his hand against the wall,

and a serpent bit him.

20Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light,

and gloom with no brightness in it?

21“I hate, I despise your feasts,

and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

22Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings,

I will not accept them,

and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts

I will not look upon.

23Take away from me the noise of your songs;

to the melody of your harps I will not listen.

24But let justice roll down like waters,

and righteousness like an everflowing stream.

25 “Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 26You shall take up Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwan your star-god, your images, which you made for yourselves; 27therefore I will take you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.