| 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.
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