Last week, a few of us were talking about the tumult and terror of Trumpian times. We were trying to remember the heroes of our past who had heeded the call before and come to the aid of our nation in dark, dangerous years. And, of course, one of the most significant figures who led a movement designed to do just that was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Later that night, back in our DC-area apartment, I began wondering what Dr. King would have to say to America today. The idea intrigued me. For more than a year, I had been working on the creation of a multi-project, multi-media network called That’s What We’re Talking About. For the 1st time in my writing career I had employed an AI assistant and I wondered if working together we could come up with a speech Dr. King might deliver if he were witnessing what is going on in America today.
So that’s exactly what we did. We created an imagined, speculative address in the moral voice of Martin Luther King Jr, which we will post tomorrow.
But first some background. In recent years, Dr. King has been flattened into a slogan, softened into a sound bite, and domesticated into something safe enough to quote. Each January, we celebrate the dream while quietly avoiding the demands that dream placed on power, truth, and citizenship.
But this year, the beginning of the second year of Donald Trump’s second presidency, would be different. America was facing dangers not unlike those of 1968, the year Dr. King was assassinated. It seemed then like it seems today that America was becoming unhinged. And that is why we chose to write the speech you will see tomorrow, the annual day set aside to reflect on all Dr. King said, and did, and stood for.
The speech will not be nostalgia, although will be rooted in the past. It will not be a tribute. It will not be a remix of familiar King quotes. The speech is intended to be viewed as a provocation and a call for action.
We did not write this piece because we believe we can speak for Dr. King. We cannot. No one can. We wrote it because King himself believed that moral imagination was essential to democracy. He believed that societies must constantly ask uncomfortable questions—not just of their leaders, but of themselves.
King confronted presidents. He confronted churches. He confronted the press. He confronted ordinary citizens who preferred comfort to courage.
He did not wait for permission. He did not wait for consensus. He did not wait until the timing felt safe.
An imagined speech can allow us to do what King asked of every generation:
to apply moral principles to present conditions, not freeze them in history.
We are living in an era saturated with noise and starved for truth. Misinformation spreads faster than correction. Grievance is rewarded more than empathy. Loyalty is demanded where accountability should be expected. Democracy, once assumed to be durable, now feels fragile and breaking —strained not by foreign invasion, but by domestic indifference. In moments like this, the ringing words and spirit of King’s voice becomes desperately needed.
You will notice tomorrow that our imagined speech never mentions a specific political figure. That choice was deliberate. King understood that the greatest danger to democracy is not one man, but a moral climate and culture that normalizes lies, excuses cruelty, and mistakes volume for virtue.
By addressing the American people directly, the speech refuses to let responsibility rest solely with leaders. It places the burden where King always placed it: on citizens, churches, institutions, and communities that must decide what they will tolerate.
Why Write This Together?
This piece is also an experiment in dialogue—between generations, between human conscience and machine-assisted reflection, between memory and modernity.
It is an example of what can be done with the assistance of AI. Two researchers, two writers, two editors. For this piece, one of us, a human, brought lived experience, historical memory, and moral concern. The other, a machine, brought synthesis, pattern recognition, and relentless questioning.
The goal was not to imitate King’s voice perfectly. The goal was to honor his function. It was to ask what he would challenge. It was to ask what he would refuse to excuse. And, most importantly, is was to ask what he would demand of us were he still with us..
An Invitation, Not a Conclusion
Tomorrow’s imagined speech is not the final word. It is an invitation – an invitation to read King fully, not selectively. An invitation to examine what we tolerate in the name of politics. An invitation to resist the temptation of silence. An invitation to stand up and speak out.
King once warned that history would judge us not by the words of our enemies, but by the silence of our friends. This piece was written because, just like in King’s times, silence no longer feels neutral. Tomorrow, we remember the magnificence of Dr. Martin Luther Jr. But also tomorrow, in the style of Dr. King, I hope an imagined speech will give you impetus to do what Dr. King was always asking of us – to find injustice and to bravely fight against it.