“It’s fun to Dream”: Looking back at Aaron McGruder’s Return of the King episode of The Boondocks
Note: The below essay is part of a larger piece that I wrote in 2009 after studying the major works written by MLK and about MLK. I have made a few grammatical edits, but this shows where my thinking was then.
What if MLK did not die on April 4, 1968, but instead went into a deep coma for 32 years. Imagine that he came out of his coma in the year 2000 to a new world that shocks him and causes him to question what he fought for during the height of the civil rights movement.
Satirist Aaron McGruder cinematized this idea in 2006 in the “Return of The King” episode of The Boondocks.McGruder magnificently satirized the social, political, and economic changes that occurred in the 32 years while King was out. King’s legacy was turned into a commodity, the culture became more narcissistic and hedonistic, streets which bared his name were ironically violent, black people became apathetic, and people forgot what he actually stood for.
In the episode, King agreed to a movie deal, which came to be directed by Oliver Stone and featured Cuba Gooding, Jr. as King. The movie came out a week after the attacks of September 11. In an interview on Politically Incorrecthe suggested that Americans “turn the other cheek,” in response to the terror attacks. Immediately his new rise in popularity plummeted, and he was called a depicted as an unpatriotic traitor. King’s heart was broken, but Huey, the radical ten year old protagonist of the show, convinced King to start a new political movement centered on King’s ideas on civil and human rights. Their attempts to mobilize people through popular media failed because nobody was interested in hearing the truths to which he spoke.
King decided to hire an urban promotions company which advertised the political party’s inaugural meeting. Unfortunately, the inaugural meeting was advertised as a party/awards show event. People showed up to the political party meeting with partying on their mind instead of activism. All sorts of character were at the party, including celebrities and televangelists. It was difficult for King and Huey to get into the party because their name was not on the list, so they bribed the bouncer to get in. Once in, King was shocked by the behavior of the crowd –profane, hedonistic, and apathetic. King made his way through the crowd, finally getting the mic to announce the goals of his political party, but no one listened to his pleasant attempts for order so that he could speak. Out of frustration, King shouted out “WILL YOU IGNORANT NIGGAS PLEASE SHUT THE HELL UP?!” This caused the audience to come to an abrupt silence which allowed him to go into a diatribe about what he had witnessed in his time back from coma. He lamented, “Is this it? Thisis what I got all those ass-whoopings for?” King’s speech to the crowd was loaded with critiques of black popular culture which he understood as the source of regression for black politics.
King concluded his speech saying, “I’ve seen what’s around the corner, I’ve seen what’s over the horizon, and I promise you, you niggas have nothing to celebrate! And no, I won’t get there with you. I’m going to Canada.” King thanked Huey, advising him to keep pushing. King’s speech ignited a fire among black people, which increased black political activity like never before.. The episode concluded with a mob of enraged, young black men and women screaming at the gates of the White House, cursing an unnamed presidential administration. Several news channels reported that all black members of the NBA decided to sit out their season until troops were withdrawn from Iraq, that drop-out rates among African-American youths had suddenly plummeted, and that Robert L. Johnson (foundr of BET) had issued a public apology for his network’s deployment of “negative” images of black life. Finally, the front page of a newspaper from 2020 show edrevealing that King had died in Vancouver at 9; it also reported that Oprah Winfrey had become the POTUS.
The episode concluded with this message, “It’s fun to dream.”
Though this cartoon represented an imaginary scenario, what McGruder comically portrayed has happened and will continue to happen if we don’t truly embrace all of the realities and messages of King.
MLK stands as one of the greatest American heroes in the history of America. He understood the beauty of America and embraced its noble ideas of freedom. So much so, that he worked his entire life to make sure that the American Dream was accessible to all of its citizens. His life alone, without the aid of any other person or institution, made him an American hero. But all sorts of forces have worked to romanticize and sanitize him. In doing so, he remains only a great man who spoke great words on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, not a man who challenged America and the world to live in a World House by ending racism, militarism, and poverty. By limiting King to a dream spoke in 1963 and a martyr who died in 1968, we also ensure that the demands that he and other leaders called for never come to life because not many know or want to know the King that began to consider “Why America May Go To Hell.”
He wanted America to live to the full capacity of her ideas, and he would have us do the same. Michael Eric Dyson argued that “We can claim his brand of heroism by fully and honestly embracing the cantankerous differences that unite us in our constant pilgrimage to America: With King as a guide, we can discover America again, and set off to conquer nothing less than the ignorance and fear that keep us from and not with each other.”