Let Us Continue to Dream

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.

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Today marks the unfortunate anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. forty years ago in Memphis. While King was not the only one to dream, he was arguably the most important. The list of most important Americans in the 20th century begins and ends with King, there is no debate to be had on this point. King's work in the 1950's and 1960's was the embodiment of those that came before him and who are oftentimes lost in the annals of history. Frederick Douglas, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Wells, and many others started the process that Dr. King brought to fruition through events like the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the March on Washington, and Bloody Sunday at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. His 1963 "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" (read here) remains the most eloquent call for change penned in the English language since the Declaration of Independence. In it he wrote:

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"In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."

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He took Jim Crow on directly and did not stop until this cruel instrument of hatred and inequality, which contradicted the founding principles of this country, was finally laid to rest. As America continues to develop into the 21st century, it is difficult to look around and not appreciate King's life's work. Social change is always slow, but there is plenty of evidence that shows that the racial divide that has been an integral part of the American experience since the first Africans were brought to this continent in the early part of the 17th century is slowly, but surely, receding. There is no better proof of this than the fact that a black man is currently the favorite to become the nominee of a major political party. Let us stop viewing race as taboo. Let us stop viewing race through a prism of the Jeremiah Wrights and Al Sharptons of the world. Let us stop telling people that events that happened less than 50 years ago are no longer important and have no bearing on a discussion of race in the 21st century. While there is still a ways to go, I would like to think that as Dr. King looks down from the mountaintop, he is currently smiling.