He would be shocked if not stunned at how little has changed in terms of Blacks’ encounters with the criminal justice system and law enforcement community.
Even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our despair against our will comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. Aeschylus
On April 4, the United States marked 50 years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
On the day that King was assassinated he was in Memphis fighting for fair wages for sanitation workers.
Fast forward 50 years, in the same America where he was killed, and the same America where he openly voiced his dream for the world to hear, nothing much has happened, society is still plagued by the racial divide.
Blacks still continue to chase the dream. More than half of African-American workers earn below $15 per hour, and income inequality has increased.
Superimposed on this already troubling situation is the fact that today the white supremacists are boldly, and with marked frequency, espousing their views. Racism remains an omnipresent force deeply implicated in every aspect of Black lives.
Dr. King is not alive today as he would be shocked if not stunned at how little has changed in terms of Blacks’ encounters with the criminal justice system and law enforcement community.
MLK’s fight was never just about race or just about ending certain practices and racial entitlements. Truth is, Dr. King was teaching us that racialism unites us too much of reality, including the reality of our potential as individuals.
It is deeply lamentable that 50 years after his death, we still need leaders to remind us of this fact, worse yet is the fact that none among our current crop of leaders seems capable of filling that role.
So we cannot stop, for we are still a way off from the mountaintop. Dr. King’s dream, or so it seems, may soon be a nightmare. Attainment of his legacy is still an illusion. His mountaintop is still in sight, but we won’t get there without a fight.
This anniversary should serve as a sombre reminder that the fate of the ideals for which he died lies in the very hands of the very people for whom he died.