In light of all that's happened in the past year, all the lives unnecessarily lost and the unhinged hatred put on display thus far, one has to wonder what would the iconic civil rights leader would have to say about it all?
We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.
And it's something that a lot of people, including the very officers tasked with protecting and serving the citizenry, are having exceptional trouble grasping.
But America's obligation to the Negro has been, for lack of better words, wanting:
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
That "shameful condition" that existed at the time Dr. King uttered the above still exists, and not on part of the Negro, as many would gleefully claim.
Just a little food for thought on this MLK day.
Previous posts:
