Like most people of my generation who know the term Beloved Community, I know it through Martin King’s writing and speeches. It’s got a longer history than that, stretching backwards and forwards. It’s important on its own terms, not just to understanding King’s thought.

As a project, I’m summarizing what I know and have read about Beloved Community over the next few days.

There’ll be definitions (and attempts at definitions) and other references, not leading to single conclusions about what the term means today. The hope is instead to do justice to the scope of meanings people have given Beloved Community in various contexts, and to identify those contexts.

First up: Josiah Royce.