February 4, 2010 Issue

Dr. Martin Luther King had a magnificent dream. He spoke of his dream of racial equality to 300,000 Americans on Aug. 28, 1963 at the March on Washington. The speech was televised live across the country and has been rebroadcast so many times that his thundering, mellifluous voice is known to us all. “I have a dream that one day…”

In his dream, ours was a country lifted from the constraints of racism and injustice. In his dream, America was as promised, a land where all people are created equal. In his dream, the gap between the precepts on which this country was founded and the reality of a segregated society disappeared. In his dream, people would be judged on the content of their character instead of the color of their skin.

Today, as I travel through the rural south, I don’t believe that what I see is what Dr. King dreamed of.

Last month we celebrated Dr. King’s birthday. February is Black History Month in this country. The small towns where the civil rights movement faced pivotal battles now read like the sites of any other war. Selma, Hayneville and Montgomery, Alabama have historical plaques that read like the battle sites that they were.

I lived through the civil rights movement. I met Dr. King and just about every one of the well-known leaders of that movement. I remember restrooms for “whites only.” I remember water fountains for “colored people.” I went to a segregated elementary school in Atlanta that was integrated by Herman Jeter in 1966. I remember Herman’s first day at school.

Recently, I wrote about Herman’s experience at Rock Springs Elementary School. Later, I encountered questions by several younger people who I work with. “Why couldn’t he go to your school?” I was asked. “Because he was black,” I replied. “I know,” I was told.

“But why couldn’t he go to the school?” I was asked again. “Because, our school only allowed white children,” I responded. “Wow, that’s weird,” I was told.

So this is Black History Month. I’ve always wondered if the lack of understanding about our recent history regarding segregation is a good thing or a bad thing. Is it that we’ve come so far in 50 years that it is inconceivable to our younger generations that segregation was ingrained in our society? Or is it frightening that the ugly days of legislated segregation have not been taught, that the battles of the civil rights movement have not been remembered?

And what of Dr. King’s dream? The battles that led to the realization of his dream involved obtaining for black people the right to vote, the right to sit on juries, the right to attend public schools. Monumental efforts, all of them. Now, 50 years later, these seemingly God-given rights are taken for granted.

Dr. King could not have dreamed of what I see today in Selma. Historical markers memorialize the site of “Bloody Sunday,” where the march to Montgomery began in an effort to secure the right to vote, now. Just over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the residents of Selma now enjoy the freedoms that Dr. King dreamt of.

Blacks are able to attend public schools, vote, and serve on juries and compete for jobs without the threat of discrimination. Whether young people realize it or not, their parents and grandparents lived in a society where those things weren’t possible.

Now, I’ve never lived in Selma. I’ve not done research on the crime rate there. I don’t know what the dropout rate is among high schools. I can only imagine what the unemployment rates are. What I see when I drive through that town is not much different than what hundreds of other towns look like. But what I see when I pass through Selma is troubling. I can envision a day when automobile navigation systems issue alerts to drivers. I can hear the computer-generated voice: “Try, at all costs, to avoid the area around Selma, Alabama. It is not safe. Attempt to find another route to your destination.”

There are almost no independent businesses in Selma. There are more Payday Loans and E-Z Loan shops than anything else. School age children are not in school. People who appear to have no means of support somehow have the ability to own pit bulldogs. Tattoos, which I assume can be fairly expensive, are prevalent. The attire of many young people borders on the ridiculous. The kids are overweight, out of work, and undereducated. Many have money for cars and stereos. And the stereos play rap music that often glorifies drugs, gangs, violence, and the disparaging of women.

Obviously, this is a generalization. But as we celebrate Black History Month, it is unfortunate that the heroic successes of the civil rights movement have to share the stage with the realities of the current social system of much of black America.

So many black men are imprisoned today. There are more black men in prison than in college. In some states more than eight percent of black males over the age of 18 are in jail. Almost no families in the black community have escaped the ravages of crack cocaine. The state of education in many black communities is worse than before integration. Crime is up and employment is down. We can always pray and hope. But for many young people in our country, the only realistic view of the future is one of hopelessness.

Dr. King had a beautiful, peaceful, passionate dream. But I don’t think this was it.

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