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Notes
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Washington wanted America to stand for something different: not the
old idea that we are better apart, but the high hope that people from the
four corners of the earth could do remarkable things together, even build a
nation, and show humanity that we are better together. Respect,
relationship and service to the common good-that was Washington's
ethic, the three pillars on which he believed a diverse democracy would
thrive.
In a too-seldom read sermon called "Remaining Awake Through A
Great Revolution,” Martin Luther King Jr. summarized the story of Rip Van
Winkle. He mentioned the details we all know-old man goes up the
mountain, falls asleep for many years, grows a long beard. But King pauses
on one detail we might have passed over: When Rip Van Winkle went up
the mountain, he passed an Inn with a picture of King George III, the
English monarch. When he came down the mountain some years later, the
Inn was still there, but the picture had changed: it was now of George
Washington. America had gone from living under a dictator to living in
a democracy
What strikes me about King's use of George Washington as a symbol of
democracy is that King's great-great grandparents could well have been
owned by General Washington. The man who welcomed Jews and Catholics
into the nation, the man who spoke of a government that gave bigotry no
sanction and persecution no assistance, he was a slaveholder.
60
REREAD Reread lines 39-45. Explain how the author supports his
opinion about Washington's view of people's freedom and identity.
Support your answer with explicit textual evidence.
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