Dr. King’s dream remains elusive 60 years after Washington march

Sixty years ago today, an estimated 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. They were there in recognition of the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and the formal end of slavery in the United States.

It was a celebration of that great moment of progress but also a call to realize the promise civil and economic rights for Black Americans who wanted little more than the opportunity to pursue prosperity on a level playing field.

It was at the March on Washington where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. Most Americans are familiar with the line from the speech in which King dreams of a future in which his children “will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

These are beautiful words that offer hope for the future. But King was in Washington that day to do more than offer hope. He was there to deliver a tongue-lashing directed at a country that, going all the way back to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, had failed to make good on its promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans — Black Americans included.

“It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds,” said King. “But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt ... And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”

Sixty years later, the check is still bouncing and many of the very same acts of violence and discrimination against Black Americans that King described from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial still occur today.

“We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality,” declared King. Yet, 60 years later, the country continues to reel from police murders of unarmed Black people including George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor and Tamir Rice. According to the Washington Post, the number of Black people killed by police increased in the years following America’s supposed “reckoning” with racial justice in 2020.

“We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one,” King said. Yet 60 years later, there is a 29% gap between the rate of white homeownership and Black homeownership and the value of homes in predominantly Black neighborhoods is lower than their white counterparts, even when adjusting for factors like neighborhood crime and poverty rates.

In fact, if you average the accumulated wealth of white households and compare it to the average accumulated wealth of a Black household, the gap is more than $800,000 dollars. Even when eliminating the extreme ends of the spectrum, the gap in the median accumulated wealth is greater than $160,000.

“We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote,” said King as he neared the speech’s crescendo. Yet 60 years later, the GOP is still using voter suppression tactics to intentionally suppress Black votes.

In 2016, a federal court found that Republican lawmakers in North Carolina requested data on racial differences in voting behaviors in the state and used that data to formulate laws targeting Black voters. They eliminated the first seven days of early voting, the days Black voters were most likely to cast their ballot.

They passed a voter ID law that only allows the types white voters are more likely to have. And they outlawed voting on Sundays, the day Black voters are most likely to cast their ballot.

Since then, similar tactics have been identified in Gop-controlled states including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin — and yes, Mississippi.

Adding insult to injury, Republican leaders aren’t even trying to hide it.

Last year, fake Trump elector and Wisconsin elections commissioner Robert Spindell wrote a message to Republicans congratulating them on Sen. Ron Johnson’s victory. In the message, Spindell took pride in the fact that the Party’s Coordinated Election Integrity program led to “37,000 less votes (in Milwaukee) than cast in the 2018 election with the major reduction happening in the overwhelming Black and Hispanic areas.” Johnson won by 26,000 votes.

The fact that a partisan election commissioner is celebrating fewer voters should shake reasonable people to their core.

“No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream,” said King, dreaming of a brighter future.

Enormous progress has been made towards fulfilling King’s dream. The Black middle class has exploded in the last 35 years as black educational achievement and professional employment has skyrocketed compared to decades past. Black influence on popular culture and representation in everything from arts, media and literature has also grown exponentially.

But still, there are lingering effects of slavery, Jim Crow and systemic racism that need to be addressed. Moreover, there is a real threat of backsliding as forces on the political right strive to unwind the progress of the past six decades and cast Black Americans back to pre-civil Rights Movement times.

It’s up to us, each and every American, to do our part to oppose efforts to dam the mighty stream of justice and remove barriers that stand in the way of the pursuit of life, liberty, freedom, and freedom and prosperity.

It’s up to us to fulfill Dr. King’s dream.