Remembering
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
By Region 8 Webmaster and LUPA Advisory
Board Chair John Davis
On Monday January 19, 2009 the annual observance
of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday will occur. This
year has taken on a renewed significance due to the inauguration
of the country’s first African-American president on Tuesday,
January 20, 2009. Many are saying that Dr. King’s Dream has
been fulfilled with this election, and clearly we as a nation has
made progress. However, it is my opinion to declare the American
people have fully become a color blind society is premature.
I believe that Dr. King’s dream was not necessarily
for a person of color to be president – I  think
Dr. King’s dream was for any person to run for president and
to be judged on the content of the character rather than the color
of their skin. Based on what I have read about Dr. King and President
Obama, I think Dr. King would have supported the President but not
due to the color of his skin but rather because of the content of
his character.
President Obama’s election is proof that we
as a nation have made progress. It is impossible to imagine this
happening 40, or even 30, 20 or 10 years ago. So we have come a
long way. However, the fact that polls showed that 25% of white
Americans said they would not vote for him because of the color
of his skin proves there is still much work to do. Plus, there are
probably many African Americans that only voted for him because
of the color of his skin.
What exactly does it mean to judge a person based
on the content of their character? I think it means to look at a
person’s heart and judge them solely on who they are as oppose
to what they are. We are born and that is it – we have no
choice in the color of our skin or what we are. But, the choices
we make as individuals determine who we are. Dr. King understood
this better than anyone, and he based his message to the world on
this concept.
Dr. King made choices – choices that I am
sure weren’t always easy. With his education, Dr. King could
have taken a job as a professor in a university and lived an easy
life in the suburbs – even during the 1950s. His family could
have lived a nice life, buffered from much of the discrimination
of the time. However, instead Dr. King choose to serve his fellow
man rather than serve himself with the advantages he had been given.
His choice resulted in his house being bombed, being jailed, being
scorned, investigated by the government and ultimately murdered.
But, his choice set in motion the wheels of justice. How slow they
often turn, but turned they did fueled by the inspiration that Dr.
King provided.
President elect Barrack Obama is another example
of a person who choose public service as oppose to self gratification.
Barack Obama is from a relatively humble background. His grandparents
sacrificed to send him to private school in Hawaii and then to attend
college first at Occidental College in Los Angeles and then at Columbia
in New York City. He then spent three years working as a community
organizer on the south side of Chicago. It was during these three
years the president elect found the purpose he had been searching
for in his life. He worked with the churches on the south side to
bring people together for the common good of all. For the first
time in his life he knew what his calling was and he poured his
heart and soul into the job. While he made a difference, he came
to realize that political action was the only way to make significant
impact on the lives of the people he was serving.
In 1988 President Elect Obama decided to continue
his education and was accepted in the law School of Harvard University.
Within two years he became the first African-American Editor of
the Harvard Law Review and graduated magna cum laude in 1991.
Following his graduation he returned to Chicago and worked as a
civil rights lawyer and taught at the University of Chicago Law
School. In 1996 he was elected to the Illinois State Senate serving
the south side Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park. He was elected
to the U.S. Senate in 2004 and decided two years later to run for
the presidency.
Without the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Barack Obama would have never had the opportunity to be president.
Dr. King challenged all Americans to examine their own heart and
identify those things that prevented us from reaching our full potential.
Hate in any form prevents us from realizing that potential. As long
as we judge people based on their appearance, we will continually
miss out on relationships that enrich and fulfill the human experience.
Practicing inclusion rather than exclusion removes the barriers
we face because of fear. It is natural to fear those things we don’t
know and understand, and this is the greatest lesson that diversity
teaches us. The more we learn about people different from ourselves,
the less we fear them. As fear subsides, trust develops and relationships
are formed. It is in these relationships that wars are avoided,
suspicions are put to rest and peace reigns.
Dr. King began a dialog that continued long after
his death from the assassin’s bullet. It was his vision, his
strength and his faith in God that drove him. It is that faith that
has sustained us as a people, as a nation and as the human race.
Dr. King helped wash away the sins of the past with a glimpse of
the future - a future that allowed a man with a Caucasian mother
and an African father to be elected president.
Does this mean that everyone has moved beyond the
fears of the past? No of course not, fears and hatred still exist.
But, we have made progress. As long as we are moving forward, we
can claim progress- we just can’t rest on the progress that
has been made. We as a people will never reach our full potential
as long as we fear and hate based on appearance alone.
So, as we remember Dr. King and his contributions
to mankind, may we never forget that as long hatred and fear still
exist we will never reach our full potential. It is that potential
that propels us, sustains us and guides us from the present to the
future. Here’s to a future that offers us the promise that
America is – one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty
and justice for ALL. |
