1968
I was eleven years old, living in Dayton, Ohio when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It was the first week of April in 1968. I remember the “breaking news” from NBC’s Chet Huntley on Dad’s TV station, WLW-D. The civil rights leader was shot in Memphis, and then died at the hospital soon after.
But what I remember most of that time was trying to understand the events of the next few days. I didn’t get why people were rioting in Dayton, and in most of the other cities in the United States. I do remember sitting in our family room, watching the TV, and seeing blocks of Dayton on fire, the police and National Guard in the streets, and the smoke on the horizon when I stepped outside. At the time, I couldn’t figure out how the death of King led to all that destruction. I didn’t know the frustration of being Black in America, of the hopes raised by the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts dashed by the continuing discrimination and economic hardship.
I was just a White kid in the suburbs. But I watched Dayton and Indianapolis and Cincinnati on fire, and listened to my parents explain what was going on. It was an early introduction into the realities of our Nation; a reality that Dr. King was trying to change.
What’s Changed
That was fifty-five years ago. Today we celebrate a national holiday in honor of King’s achievements, but more importantly to recognize his goals that were not achieved or satisfied. Unemployment rates for Black people are almost double that of White people (US BLS). Average income for White families is $75000, average for Black families $45,000 (US Census).
Dr. King’s “Dream” of an America where race no longer mattered, given sixty years ago from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, is still unfulfilled.
In our fifteen-second sound bite era, George Floyd and Black Lives Matter has faded in the background. But we still live in a time, when the number one cause of death among Black men under forty-four is homicide (CDC). It isn’t even in the top three for White men. Color, sixty years later, still matters.
There is a Facebook “meme” going around that seems to denigrate the purpose of this American holiday. “I have a ‘Dream’ of a day off, but I’m headed to work”, or “I have a ‘Dream’ of a vacation in Hawaii, but I’m clocking-in today”. I can’t really tell, is this a way to cheapen Dr. King’s words, or just a rap at employers who require folks to work on a Federal holiday? And then there are two states, Mississippi and Alabama (go figure) that make this a joint holiday, Dr. King and Confederate General Robert E. Lee (WAPO). They honor both the man who fought for equality, and the man who fought for enslavement.
Color-Blind
Politicians often quote Dr. King’s phrase “…judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”. Many use that to call for “color-blind” laws, that treat everyone as if we are on a “level” playing field. We are not. Skin color still determines life outcomes. Until we build a society where that isn’t true, we shouldn’t dare to use King’s words against programs we know he’d fight for.
Sure it’s a school holiday. Here in Ohio, many students had a four day weekend. Fireworks were going off in the field behind our house last night –not in honor of King, but because those kids didn’t have a bedtime for a six am wakeup call. Our dogs were not pleased.
What Martin Luther King Day should be, is a time of reflection on the past fifty-five years. Why haven’t we achieved a “color-blind” society in this lifetime? What’s wrong with our America? Can’t we find it in our hearts and minds to get past the prejudices of our forefathers? How can we still allow any state to give a wink and a nod to the discriminatory past by juxtaposing King and Lee? How, in America is it still about the color of your skin?
We Are Bound
Martin Luther King day, like King’s speeches, is about the possibilities, what we can be, not what we are.
Shed a Little Light
(James Taylor)
Oh, let us turn our thoughts today
To Martin Luther King
And recognize that there are ties between us
All men and women living on the Earth
Ties of hope and love
Sister and brotherhood
That we are bound together
In our desire to see the world
Become a place in which our children
Can grow free and strong
We are bound together by the task
That stands before us
And the road that lies ahead
We are bound, and we are bound
