Forty years… for many, still only a dream.
Posted by deCadmus on 04 Apr 2008 at 12:38 pm | Category: The World, Forty-two
I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream 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.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four 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.
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When MLK was assassinated in 1968, I was 22 years old teaching 1st grade in Cairo, GA. I had crossed colored lines - the term used when white teachers taught at colored schools. This was GA’s idea of integration.
When I was interviewed for the job, the white superintendent told me he had to make sure I wasn’t prejudiced against colored children. I told him I taught children and I didn’t care what color they were!
The children came from poor, rural families. I was their first contact with a white person who treated them with dignity. I’ve often wondered if they found others who treated them with dignity.
In too many places, still, far too many folk of most all skin colors (and genders or sexual preference, belief in god or lack of it, home on the wrong side of the tracks or no home at all) aren’t afforded the dignity that *each* of us deserves.
It makes me think that racism has never been an issue of color but a question of humanity; specifically, the *lack* of it that marks one as a racist.
Thanks for your note.