The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Martin Luther King? I, too, have a dream
When I was a kid, the name Martin Luther King Jr. was like an electric current running through Black neighborhoods.
The March on Washington had galvanized the civil rights movement and Black people could not stop talking about King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and the real possibility that change was going to come.
His call to let freedom ring from the mountaintops to the valleys — and the massive response to his words from white Americans — were winds of hope with sails set toward equality.
King’s voice could be heard and read everywhere — on television and radio stations and in newspapers and magazines.
I remember Black people saying to each other, “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last,” as they tried to imitate the fire in his voice.
There was no doubt that Blacks were ebullient, and the conversations in Black neighborhoods turned from despair to talking about having better-everything, from jobs and wages to opportunity and housing.
It made quite an impression on me.
I was just beginning to understand what then was called prejudice — but still too young to understand or recognize the impact it had on my parents and, eventually, on my life.
But I was beginning to understand that because I was Black, I was stigmatized with a stain I could not wash off.
Psychologically, it was a hard way to grow up. I felt I was being groomed to be a second-class citizen only allowed to feed off leftovers in the country where I was born.
So, I grew up in conflict with myself, feeling like I was two people: the one my mother told me I was and the one America was trying to convince me to become.
The stigma followed me everywhere like an invisible cloak, at times consigning me to swallow my pride and accept the circumstances in order to get through another day.
I would spend the rest of my life trying to wash away that stain and prove my worth — but the stigma would always be a shifting barrier that set roadblocks on every path I set out on.
That is why the words to “I Have a Dream” resonated so strongly in Black neighborhoods; they gave us the dream of tomorrow and the hope that the final battle to end racism was at the threshold.
But as we now know, dreams die hard.
Eventually, as I grew and lost opportunities, for which race could be the only explanation, I realized that hope merely stretches time — and frustration and discouragement are the minutes and seconds that fill its space.
It’s been nearly 58 years since King’s iconic speech and his unifying vision that became the fabric of the civil rights movement that continues to this day.
But King is our past and what we, as Black people, need is our future.
I cannot say things have not improved. Blacks and other minorities certainly are doing better in many ways since the days of our parents.
But as the events of 2020 spill over into 2021, we still face the same old problems.
And that’s why I, too, have a dream.
I have a dream that one day Black people will realize that King’s words not only gave us hope but left us a road map that is up to us to follow.
I have a dream that one day Black people will stop turning to whites for what we need and turn to each other for what we can achieve when united.
I have a dream that one day Black people will recognize that we have moved beyond the March on Washington — and now the real struggle for equality lies in our back pocket and in our vote.
Those two things are our only hope to better jobs, better housing, better education and better opportunities.
I have a dream that one day we will stop allowing ourselves to be part of the pity brigade that presents us to the world as the face of poverty and every social ill.
I have a dream that one day Black kids can come into the world and not have to answer to America for the color of their skin.
I have a dream that one day the Constitution will stand as it is and not be open to interpretation when the words of our Founding Fathers could not be more clear.
I have a dream that whatever the outcome at the Capitol in the coming days and months, I never have to choose between the love I feel for my white relatives and friends and the allegiance I must have to my race.
And I have a dream that one day Black columnists can sit down and write that the dream has come true — and never have to write again how so many dreams died hard for equality.
But right now, we are still marching toward the dream.
It’s impossible to think of Martin Luther King Jr. and not celebrate the words of his powerful dream of a better place for all of us.
But it is also impossible to ignore that his words on Aug. 28, 1963, still haven’t come true. So, let me remind all of us of a portion of what King said.
“One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.
“But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
“And 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 ...”
And like the Constitution, those are words that also need no further interpretation.
I understand them perfectly.
King? I, too, have a dream.