Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Today is a holiday celebrating one the country’s greatest Black Americans, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and sadly, for now, his dream is being forgotten.

I have vivid memories of that sunny day in Washington, D.C. on August 28^th 1963. I was a teenager and along with my best friend, we spent hours riding buses and walking to get to the Lincoln Memorial. Two young white boys standing on the north side of the Reflecting Pool in a sea of about 250,000 people, mostly African Americans. Still there were a significant number of whites scattered throughout the crowd too. The mood was almost carnival like as music blasted from the memorial. While the two of us believed in the Civil Rights Movement, it was Bob Dylan and Joan Baez that we came to hear, along with Peter, Paul and Mary. Shortly after Mahalia Jackson sang Dr. King stepped to the podium. Dr. King began to speak about his dream that one day everyone would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

It was partly his dream that moved the United States of America in a new and hopeful direction. Through decades of riots, church burnings, legislation, demonstrations, open conflict, National Guard actions and court cases the country stumbled forward and started to heal and things got better.

Ever since that Summer day in 1963 I’ve tried to live my life guided by those words of Dr. King about being color blind. Just over two decades ago in 1999 about 69 percent of all Americans thought that relations between white and black Americans were actually “good” and getting better.

But just nine years later only 65 percent felt that way and in 2021 it had dropped to 43 percent of U.S. adults. That means that 57 percent viewed the relations between black and white Americans as bad.

Today on the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. we need to try and understand what has been going wrong and who or what is causing this (I have some opinions but that’s for another time). If we don’t get back on the right path in America things are only going to get worse and that would be a disaster for all of us.