Martin Luther King Jr.: “I Have a Dream” – Have We Made Progress? |
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| By: Rayne Monday January 17, 2011 9:45 am | |
Worth revisiting today, an essay on the life of MLK, Jr.: Prophet with Honor, by Marshall Frady for New York Review of Books, October 27, 1983.
Have we made any real progress toward the dream?
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11 Comments
Have we made real progress?
I think yes, we have as a country, although obviously we have not overcome racism altogether. The fact that an African American is now president was a direct result of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Sorry, Rayne, I got the message ‘internal error’ on your link. Thanks for trying.
I am remembering that the imagery of the “I have a dream” speech was of Moses leading the Israelites to the brink of the promised land, into which he himself could not go. I think we all stand on that brink at present; we all may not get there with our people, our followers.
He should not be standing there alone. Think how much better it would feel if we put ourselves there with him, on the crest of the mountain gazing at the beautiful valley and overarching sky – instead of trying to consume all the goodies down below.
We may not have made progress, but he did. Now, there was a man.
The contrast is staggering between the fire of hate speech and the fire of the Holy Spirit coming down pentecostally on Martin Luther King.
The East Indians put it differently but same idea: “May the Goddess dwell on your tongue.”
The only advance since his death has been in the genocide of his race that he fought so hard for. Heart disease, aids, diabetes, cancer, executions, murders have reduced black life expectancy three years since 1969. In 1969 21% of black births were to unmarried women; today 75%.It has been a ” Great Society,” for African Americans.
Zenostoa
There has been unequivocal progress. When I go through the reconstructed train station in Purcellville, VA, the white waiting station was well appointed and heated. Black citizens waited in the baggage room, unheated. I am reminded of the malicous events of the day.
Up until forty-two years ago, black citizens in our county went to black schools – in fact it was the mid-forties until a black citizen could receive a high school education here. Only one of those was built with enough quality to continue in use today.
I remember the NCAA final between Kentucky and Texas Western in 1966 when blacks were not allowed to participate in a number of major universities.
Today there is a black middle class that was much smaller in the days of Dr. King.
To deny that there is progress is to deny the obvious, and it casts all of one’s statements into question.
Progress, certainly. This was sent by Anthony Freda (www.anthonyfreda.com) and shows pe=retty graphically how far…
http://www.anthonyfreda.com/IMAGES/MAIN_IMAGES/ObamaNation_AnthonyFreda.jpg
I wish we had come as far as he had admonished us to resist the unjust wars fought in our names in his “Why I Oppose the War in Viet Nam” speech.
We have advanced I think, but not nearly enough. Martin Luther King is widely respected and his example can be used to teach peace.
We’ve made progress the way we always do, in fits and starts, in leaps and fall backs and always with the efforts of those who believe in the idea of equality for all. That dream, Dr. King’s dream will always be pushed against and if we are to redeem it we have to find the piece of the dream we will stand for and stand for it constantly.
I put this comment up at your other post, but it probably fits better here.
I live in what is arguably the most racially divided city in America. We live on the “white” side of the river, my daughter’s best friend lives on the “black” side of the river. She slept over last night, so this morning I had breakfast with two BFF, one white and one black, who gave absolutely no sign that either of them knew what day this was. While I commented here off and on, they spent their time on their DS’s and at mall world. Sixty years ago, when I was a kid living in the South, my mother raised a horrible scene in a department store one day, because a black man bumped into a white woman. We didn’t get this far by voting for the right politicians or by joining the right political party, or, as the author says, by blogging about it.
There will be other Martin Luther King Jrs. I’m counting on it.
Memphis? New Orleans? Knoxville? Where do you live? (If you don’t mind telling) Not in the south?
“Have we made any real progress toward the dream?”
Yep. We’ve replaced rights with supporting political party policies.