Since its official designation as a national holiday, the January 15 birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has been celebrated throughout the nation on the third Monday of January with marches, speeches and various other symbolic observances. Such annual public displays however fall short of the mark if not accompanied throughout the year with more meaningful involvement in, and support of those ideals, institutions, organizations and individuals who dedicate themselves to the realization of Dr. King’s dream of true liberty and justice for all in this unique American democracy.
The results of Dr. King’s exemplary non-violent philosophy and peaceful demonstrations legally changed the face of history – although general attitudes in this country still lag far behind.
It is pathetic that most of the wisdom and sacrifices of this eloquent orator and civil rights martyr remain basically unknown, and that the name Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has become synonymous, among Black and White alike, only with his immortal “I Have A Dream” speech, delivered August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial during the nation’s first massive protest march on Washington against segregation.
Webster defines dreams as being of two kinds: one, a series of thoughts, images and feelings that come to a person during sleep – which describes the societal slumber we have allowed ourselves to slip into over the past 50-plus years with the false illusion by too many that “We have overcome.”
I don’t believe that to “overcome” merely entailed being able to go deeper in debt than ever before, live in neighborhoods and spend more money than we make in places we were never allowed in before or to fall asleep at the switch while more of our children and youth are being forced out of public schools we could never attend before, or worse still, graduate with less knowledge and fewer basic skills than ever before.
Webster’s second definition of dreams is described as “an imaginary vision” while awake, that defines the motivating thrust behind Dr. King’s sacrificial life and subsequent assassination that attracted world-wide attention.
Following a few successful landmark court battles, being gradually reversed in our failure to remain vigilant, we are now shocked at the current statistics of high school dropouts, the re-segregation of public schools and the percentage of our children labeled with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) that schools can get more funds per pupil for prescribed drugs when the real problem is simply 3-D (Discipline and Diet Deficiency) from lack of early loving spiritual discipline, coupled with nutritional daily diet as opposed to today’s hype and junk food.
Wake Up America! Hear and heed the wisdom of other speeches of Dr. King as: “We have neither peace within nor peace without. Everywhere paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. Our world is sick with war… We have experimented with the meaning of nonviolence in our struggle for racial justice in the United States, but now the time has come for man to experiment with nonviolence in all areas of human conflict and that means nonviolence on an international scale. Our loyalties must become ecumenical that than sectional … must transcend race, tribe, class, and must develop a world perspective… Now the judgment of God is upon us,” he continues, “and we must either live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools… I believe that unarmed troops and Love will the final say,” he concludes. (Investigate!)
