EUGENE VOLOKH writes on Martin Luther King’s birthday:

The message of July 4 is “What a great country!” The message of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday is at least in large part “What great crimes our country has committed, but what a great thing it is that we have largely overcome them.”

I think that it’s not bad for the nation to have at least few holidays that are occasion for self-criticism or even self-doubt, mixed with confidence in a better future. Self-congratulations are important, too, but they should be mixed with some official and repeated acknowledgements of past wrongs. But it’s important to recognize that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday is a different sort of holiday, which is supposed to create a different mood and contribute something different to the national psyche than other holidays do.

True enough. Both messages are important ones.