Does Martin Luther King really want his birthday commercialized?

Host: The city was alive in neon — billboards flashing slogans, screens blaring holiday sales, and the rhythmic hum of traffic echoing off wet asphalt. It was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, yet the air smelled more of commerce than conscience. A giant banner hung across the square — “MLK DAY SALE! 50% OFF FREEDOM!” — its irony glowing in digital arrogance.

Beneath it, Jack and Jeeny stood at the edge of the fountain, where the water reflected a thousand fractured lights. The night was cold, and yet the streets were crowded — people shopping, laughing, scrolling.

Jeeny’s eyes lifted toward the banner, her breath visible in the chill.

Jeeny: “Jidenna once asked, ‘Does Martin Luther King really want his birthday commercialized?’”

Host: The question hung between them, heavy and electric, as if the city itself were listening.

Jack: “It’s inevitable,” he said, his voice low, his hands buried in his coat pockets. “Everything noble gets repackaged eventually. That’s how society keeps memory alive — by selling it.”

Jeeny: “Selling it?” Her voice sharpened. “You think turning his dream into a discount code honors his memory?”

Host: The wind swept through the square, tugging at her hair, carrying the faint echo of a street preacher’s voice from a block away — a fragment of a sermon drowned by honking horns.

Jack: “Look, ideals fade. Economics endures. If people buy a shirt with King’s face, they still remember him. It’s exposure — maybe not pure, but effective.”

Jeeny: “Effective?” Her eyes flashed. “Turning a prophet into a product isn’t remembrance — it’s betrayal. Dr. King preached sacrifice, not consumption.”

Jack: “You’re assuming remembrance must be sacred to be sincere. Maybe this —” he gestured toward the glittering chaos, the neon lights spelling MLK MEGA DEALS! — “is the only language people understand now.”

Host: A train rumbled in the distance, its metallic groan blending with the rhythm of the city. The lights reflected in Jeeny’s eyes, bright and broken.

Jeeny: “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard — that the only way we can remember a man who fought for dignity is by cheapening it.”

Jack: “You call it cheapening. I call it adaptation. His message was about reaching the masses, wasn’t it? Maybe this is what reaching them looks like in the twenty-first century.”

Jeeny: “Reaching them with what? Discounts on sneakers? Ads that use his words to sell cars?”

Jack: “You’re focusing on the surface. People buy those shoes, see his quote, and maybe — just maybe — they google who he was. Awareness spreads, even through ugliness.”

Host: The fountain sprayed, catching the neon glow — red, blue, white — the same colors that once symbolized liberty now bleeding into one another like confusion.

Jeeny: “Awareness built on mockery isn’t awareness. It’s noise. You can’t teach justice through irony.”

Jack: “So you’d rather his legacy sit in museums? Untouched? Forgotten by the next generation scrolling past textbooks?”

Jeeny: “No, I’d rather it live in action, not advertising. I’d rather people march instead of shop. Reflect instead of repost.”

Host: Her voice trembled, and the crowd around them shifted — laughter, movement, transactions — a living mural of distraction.

Jack: “Marching doesn’t pay bills, Jeeny. Protests don’t trend forever. But a brand can carry a message long after the chants fade.”

Jeeny: “Only if the message survives the branding. But it doesn’t. It’s diluted, sanitized. They use his words — ‘I have a dream’ — to sell products made by people who can’t even afford those dreams.”

Host: Her words cut through the night like shards of glass. A street vendor nearby shouted, “King Day specials! Half-off flags and pins!” The irony burned like frost.

Jack: “You can’t expect moral purity in a capitalist world. Even King wore suits, gave speeches sponsored by donors. The machinery of influence always needs fuel.”

Jeeny: “There’s a difference between support and sale, Jack. Between being funded and being flattened into a slogan. They’ve turned him from a man of fire into a brand of comfort. That’s not adaptation — that’s erasure with a smile.”

Host: The rain began, light but persistent, tracing silver lines across the glass storefronts. Jack turned toward her, his eyes reflective, like the water pooling at their feet.

Jack: “You think anyone in that crowd remembers what he died for? The poverty campaign, the labor strike? Most people just know the speech. Maybe commercialization keeps the name alive even if the cause is buried.”

Jeeny: “Then what’s the point of keeping the name if the truth dies with it? Would you preserve a flame by suffocating it in plastic?”

Jack: “Maybe I’m pragmatic. You’re idealistic. You want purity in a world that thrives on compromise.”

Jeeny: “Purity isn’t the issue. Reverence is.”

Host: She stepped forward, her voice steady now, low but burning. “Dr. King wasn’t killed for being convenient. He was killed because he was inconvenient — because he told America the dream was incomplete. And now we sell that dream like cotton candy, all sugar, no substance.”

Jack: “And yet you quote him. You post him. You consume him too, Jeeny — just more tastefully.”

Host: The words struck — not cruelly, but with precision. Her lips parted, ready to argue, but she hesitated. The truth was complicated, and both of them could feel it.

Jeeny: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I consume him too. But I still feel him. When I hear his speeches, I don’t think of money — I think of courage. Of clarity. Of love as a weapon.”

Jack: “Love doesn’t trend, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “It doesn’t need to.”

Host: The rain deepened, softening the neon glare. A group of teenagers ran past them, laughing, one holding a bag with King’s face printed beside a corporate logo. The image lingered like a wound.

Jeeny: “That image breaks my heart. They don’t even see the contradiction.”

Jack: “Maybe they don’t need to. Maybe the contradiction is what keeps his message alive — friction breeds memory.”

Jeeny: “Or numbness. You keep justifying apathy by calling it realism.”

Jack: “And you keep mistaking nostalgia for morality.”

Host: The air thickened, and the sound of rain grew louder, drowning out everything but the pulse of their argument. Then — quiet. Jeeny’s eyes softened, the anger giving way to ache.

Jeeny: “Do you remember his words, Jack? ‘I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.’ He didn’t say love was easy. He said it was necessary. But love requires respect — not exploitation.”

Jack: “Maybe commercialization is just a symptom of how lost we are — trying to buy our way back to meaning.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe that’s our tragedy — mistaking souvenirs for salvation.”

Host: The city lights dimmed, reflected in the puddles like a thousand fractured halos. The banner above them flickered — one letter going dark, so it now read “MLK DAY ALE.” The irony was almost holy.

Jack: “You know,” he said quietly, “if King could see this — the noise, the neon, the endless selling — I think he’d still march. But not in protest. In pity.”

Jeeny: “No,” she whispered, “in hope. Because even through the noise, there are still people who hear his real voice beneath the static.”

Host: Jack looked at her, the city reflected in his grey eyes, and nodded slowly. The rain softened, washing the streets clean enough to glimpse faint reflections of something purer — a light untouched by commerce.

Jack: “Maybe that’s our job — to remember the man beneath the merchandise.”

Jeeny: “Yes. To keep the dream human.”

Host: The camera rose slowly, drifting upward through the rain, over the crowd, over the signs, over the faces too distracted to notice the quiet exchange below. Two figures stood still at the center of the chaos — not saints, not cynics, just witnesses.

And as the city glowed and the rain fell, one truth burned quietly through the blur of neon and noise —
that a dream cannot be sold,
only shared,
only lived.