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Tomorrow a man will be elected into the Oval Office, who like Dr. King has become the watermark for America’s race relations. He is that check in the book that we can take a deep breath, pat each other on the back and feel alright about America.
I have to wonder though is this why he will be remembered? Not his actions as a leader but because he got voted in. The first. The first to be accepted by the most people in the most populous of states. The first to get 25% of whiteys.
Dr. King is a figure that has become an icon. Most folk, black or white, don’t know a damn thing about the man. About what he stood for, about what he did, about his message. Not the message about his dream, it was the message he spent the last five years of his life working on.
Dr. King’s holiday has become a holiday about a dream.
Dreams are wonderful. But we all know when we are dreaming we really don’t think about what it takes to achieve a dream. The misconception about Dr. King is that he only gave great speeches, he only talked about black and white.
The thing we miss on this holiday was he wasn’t just talking about a dream. Yes he was the philosopher but he was also the leader. He was forming plans - studying, analyzing, organizing and finally acting. When he did talk he was preaching about how to achieve this dream….
This focus on the dream is unfortunate because it took 40 years until a man with his hue would be our elected leader. While our government actively worked against Dr. King and his followers, Barack Obama is the decision maker of that government now. Mr. Obama has been accepted by America in his own time, something Dr. King was very far from achieving. Not because of his dream but because of his action.
Tomorrow morning I am going to be watching the inauguration and I am going to smile. This spring I’m going to go to Washington D.C. and sit down on that lawn and I am going to smile. Every day I am running the courts with brothers yellow, white, black and brown I will be smiling.
The thing I hope for though is in 8 years I have even more to smile about. And in 40 years I hope I don’t need no special days to remember what I was smiling about. And it ain’t about no dream it’s about work.
[URL]http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200701/20070112_west.html[/URL]
[URL]http://www.amazon.com/Racial-Matters-Secret-America-1960-1972/dp/0029236827[/URL]
[URL]http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/628.html[/URL]
[URL="http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/628.html"]
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—This was condensed from 4 pages of writing. There is a whole lot of other essays coming soon.
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