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.