Martin Luther King

Doctor Martin Luther King staged protests in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 and upset the city fathers who then turned to the city's black clergy and pressured them to publicly distance themselves from Dr. King.  The ministers complied and told Dr. King in writing essentially not to rock the boat for those who lived in Birmingham as they would have to deal with the repercussions of his actions long after he was gone.
        Not being in a position to pick up a phone and call the men in question, or to dictate a letter to them he found the ONLY paper available to him, the April 16th days newspaper. He got a pen from a guard and in the margins of the news paper sat down and wrote a letter to his fellow clergymen which became the now legendary "letter from a Birmingham jail."

      In this now legendary epistle Doctor King explained WHY he'd come to their city and why he had to do what he was doing. He explained how simply being passive was the best way of insuring that the black man's position in the south would never change and how it was the best way to assure continued second class citizenry.

       I write this on the day Americans set aside to honor Dr. King and racial tensions in America in the year 2018 most certainly have NOT disappeared. I doubt they ever will. While there IS hope I can honestly say the America in which I live is NOT the same America in which my parents and grandparents lived. I will not be denied entrance into restaurants, hotels and restrooms simply because of the color of my skin.  I can vote without fear of the Ku Klux Klan coming to my home to "send me a message" and I can interact socially with whomever I please without fear of groups of violent bigots setting upon us.
     
     In 1963 Dr. King gave a speech in the shadow of the Lincoln memorial which became known as the "I have a Dream" speech in which he envisioned an America in which "his children would "be judged NOT by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." He admitted that in 1963 "a negro in the south can not vote and a negro in the north feels he has nothing for which to vote." My grandfather couldn't vote in rural Louisiana for the better part of his life. When I turned 18 one of the first things I did was register to vote and have never missed an election. I have two nephews who don't vote at all and figure it serves no purpose. One distrusts all politicians the other thinks the system is "rigged" to where his voting for president won't make a difference.

      Does racism still exist? I know of ONE job I KNOW I didn't get simply because of the color of my skin.  I have been called racial slurs by people who either didn't think I heard them or simply didn't give a damn how a person of color felt about anything.  I've had people tell stupid jokes based on stereotypes in my presence because they didn't think I possessed the intellect to know I was being insulted and I've most certainly been treated differently for simply being a black man.

     Things for which I'm simply ostracized now are things for which I would have been either jailed without cause or LYNCHED for years ago so I have to say things are MUCH better than they were.  If Dr. King were alive today, had he NOT been assassinated in 1968 his character would have been daily on Fox News and in conservative news outlets the way his lieutenant John Lewis' is now.  While he was alive conservatives in both parties OPENLY called him a "communist".
    Truth be told, today isn't the day in which I honor and remember Dr. King, for me that day is April 4th the anniversary of his death.
        I believe Dr. King's work was not so much about race in America, but rather us reaching a point where every American would enjoy the same rights and privileges regardless of his/her race, religion or where he or she might have been born. Do I believe his dream his been realized? Hardly. Do think it will be one day? I have hope and would love to live to see it.