ABSTRACT
The way Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered by African-Americans and, in particular, in the African-American church is and should be different from the way he is remembered by "America”. The high profile of Martin Luther King, Jr. sometimes obscured the institutional role of the Black Church that he personified as an ordained minister. He increasingly distrusted liberalism and, according to Richard Lischer, expressed outright disgust with American civil religion. The chapter suggests that King's "liberalism" was always subservient to his embeddedness in the black church and the memory of his people that that church embodies. King could confidently appeal to liberal sentiments because he was a black Baptist preacher who would never be a liberal. Liberal memory makes King the great hero of the liberal ideals of "freedom of the individual" and "equality," but King did not represent "individuals."
