At a time when racial tension in the United States seems to be near its height, a time when mistrust and discord is palpable, it is clear that the vision of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is far from realized.
“I have a dream,” King famously intoned from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
For more than 50 years, that soaring oratory has been a rallying cry for those who long for justice and equality. For those who desire that this nation to live up to its creed of justice for all. And while it is easy and common these days to focus upon the strife that divides us along racial lines, it also is instructive to consider the dystopian state of race relations at the time when King was helping to open the nation’s eyes to its own bigotry.
Prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, state and local governments were allowed to legally segregate and discriminate simply because of a person’s race, color, religion, or gender. A series of Jim Crow laws, which had been in place since the aftermath of the Civil War, particularly in the South, would institutionalize separate drinking fountains or separate bathroom facilities for blacks and whites, would segregate schools and public transportation based upon race, and would allow for restaurants or inns to decline service to blacks. The fact that separate drinking fountains for blacks and whites now would be considered anathema is a sign of progress, even if that progress has been slow.
Prior to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, it was legal for states to institutionally suppress the minority vote. Local laws often required literacy tests, poll taxes, property-ownership laws, or “moral character” tests in an effort to prevent blacks from voting. Following the Civil War, some Southern states gave whites an end-run around these laws by instituting a “grandfather clause,” which allowed those citizens to vote if their grandfather had voted and excluded blacks whose ancestors had been unable to vote because they were slaves. The fact that such laws are considered by most people these days to be unconscionable is another sign of progress.
It was in this cauldron of institutionalized racism that King became the historic figure we celebrate and honor today. The federal holiday, annually recognized around King’s birthday of Jan. 15, was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 and observed nationally for the first time in 1986. Even then, some states resisted, and it was not universally recognized in the United States until 2000.
These days, King is widely acknowledged for his doctrine of nonviolence, for the leadership role he played in the civil rights movement, and for his remarkable, inspiring oratory. And while it is common to decry the nation’s current state of race relations, particularly following the election of a presidential candidate who exploited those tensions for his own gain, it is important to recall the level of discord and lack of opportunity that King was speaking against.
“I have a dream,” he said, “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ ”
We still are waiting for that day, recognizing that progress comes through small steps and that change inherently is marked by fits and starts. Yet some 49 years after he was assassinated, King’s dream lives on, and it remains a dream worthy of unyielding pursuit.
