go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed

As we pay tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., on his birthday this coming week, it may be worth it to think about how he conceptualizes the idea of city, and African Americans in particular in such a space. If we think back to his "I Have a Dream" speech, which was given in 1963 in Washington DC, we may be struck by the degree to which states, rather than cities, are mentioned. In reviewing excerpts from his speech, which permit our geographically seeing what he saw, ponder why in the year 1963 he shapes urban space in the ways he does: "We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote...I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed...I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice...I have a dream that ....one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers...And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring."