Today is a holiday and I’m sitting here with tears in my eyes and rage in my heart trying to figure out what we’re celebrating? Dr. King’s legacy? I mean no disrespect, but what legacy? There is nothing holy or whole in this celebration and the only thing we’ve overcome is the need to sing about someday. African Americans are still 3/5 human and the dream is still deferred.
Nearly 50 years ago, Dr. King gave a speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that has become known as “I Have a Dream.” That speech was originally entitled “Insufficient Funds” and in it Dr. King said,
“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
Martin said, “We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". What has changed African America? What?
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Posted By: Michelle Diane
Monday, January 17th 2011 at 2:48PM
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