The year 2023 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the March on Washington that featured civil rights leader, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This article focuses on King’s critique of racism, poverty, and militarism, and his commitment to justice, love, and hope.

Drawing out Stephen Bevans’s thesis that Christian theologizing has never been an
exclusively European project, this article proposes that theologians working within
the context of the United States turn their theological praxis to consideration of
persons in all our splendid, impoverished, joyous, sobering, and diverse humanity.
The article accords particular attention to cultural pluralism and interculturality along
with transdisciplinary methods of theologizing. Given the violent public activity of
white racist supremacist groups and individuals along with the barrage of racist verbal
assaults and tweets by high-ranking officials, theology’s active and public defense of
human persons has never been more necessary.