In the "I Have a Dream" speech, MLK said that he and the crowd had come to DC to "cash a check." He also referred to the Founders as "architects."
Here King gets to the heart of the matter. Though the modes are different, a century after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans are still manacled, enchained, impoverished, languishing, and exiled in the country where, by birthright now, they are citizens. As such, they deserve more. They were promised more. So they have come to cash the check.
What are checks? At one level they are mere slips of paper, written from one person or entity to another, instructing the issuer’s bank to pay the recipient the amount specified. But it is harder to grasp now, in the era of Venmo, Apple Pay, and ubiquitous credit cards, that there is a moral component to that slip of paper.
A check presumes – and constitutes a promise – that those writing them actually have the requisite money in the bank and stand ready to pay what they owe. Checks are not just a financial instrument but an extension of one’s word, and thus of one’s trustworthiness. Whose credibility was on the line here?
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Note that King does not refer to the Founders, or to the Founding Fathers, terms that would imply obligations of veneration, obedience, or even familial loyalty. He does acknowledge their status as architects of the republic. It is an interesting word choice. Architects are not owners. They envision and design blueprints for structures that others build, live in, use, maintain, and–when necessary–repair and remodel.
King also pays homage to the “magnificent words” the architects imbued in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. In doing so he joins with the great majority of Americans who also see the documents composed by these words as praiseworthy. But King’s tribute seems double-edged. What is magnificent can also be brought low, even sullied. And words are only that; they need to be embodied and given concrete meaning in the world.
