Advertisement
| Senate Sketches |
 |
 |
 |
View Comments
| Opinion Headlines |
| Written by Senator Hank Sanders |
| Thursday, 04 February 2010 10:40 |
 It was Dr. Martin Luther King’s National Holiday. I stood before the crowd that stretched across the front of the large park in Clearwater, Florida and spoke to five major points. Since I am limited by space in Sketches, I will share just one of those points with you: Know the Dreamer; Understand the Dream. We don’t really know Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We know he made a great speech where he repeated the now famous refrain, “I Have a Dream.” But we don’t really know the Dreamer. We know he wanted Black and White people to live and work together. But we don’t really know the Dream. We are so comfortable with Dr. King now. In fact, we love him. But that’s because we don’t really know him, and more importantly, he is dead. When he was living, most of us were not comfortable with him. He was truly trying to change things and that makes most of us uncomfortable. Many of us were uncomfortable with Dr. King. Some, however, were deeply disturbed. Some even carried profound hate in their hearts. To understand this, you have to know Dr. King beyond the name, beyond the voice, beyond the refrain, “I have a Dream.” Dr. King was truly committed to creating a just society. He wanted every person – Black and White, old and young, male and female, poor and rich – to have the opportunity to develop and utilize every gift God gave them. Understand the dream. That dream sounds wonderful but when we realize that our lives might have to really change for that dream to become reality for others, we get scared. And scared folks sometimes do crazy things. In life, Dr. King scared a lot of people because he truly wanted to make his dream a reality. Some scared White folks attacked Dr. King in the media on a daily basis. Go back and read newspapers between 1955 and 1968. Some scared Black folks did not want Dr. King to come to their particular city in spite of racial oppression. Some urged him to stay away while others just hoped he would not come. Some scared White folks repeatedly threatened Dr. King’s life along with that of his wife and children. The ring of the telephone was too often another threat. Some scared White folks tried to bomb Dr. King’s home with his wife and children in the house. Their fears would not allow them to care that some of these were children. One scared Black woman in Harlem stabbed Dr. King in the chest. The knife came so close to a major artery near his heart that the doctor said that if he had sneezed, the knife would have moved, cutting the artery and bringing death. Know the Dreamer. Some scared Alabama officials framed Dr. King. They put him on trial for tax evasion and tried to take away his freedom even though there was no evidence whatsoever. Scared leaders of the FBI, the chief law enforcement agency in this country, hounded him day and night. They secretly recorded virtually every single thing he did. They tried to force him to commit suicide. They tried to destroy his marriage. They tried to destroy his reputation. Know the Dreamer. A scared President of the United States was consumed with anger toward Dr. King because he spoke out against the Vietnam War. He decided that Dr. King should only speak out on racial matters, not war and peace. Know the Dreamer. Finally Dr. King was murdered in cold blood in Memphis, Tennessee. And all he was trying to do was make a small piece of his dream come true. He wanted the poor, down trodden garbage workers in Memphis to have decent wages. Dr. King could truly see a just society in his mind’s eye. And he risked his life daily as he worked to make the dream real. He tried to make his dream real by implementing his vision of justice. And it’s a dangerous thing to implement a vision that really changes things. Know the Dreamer. In Montgomery, Dr. King worked to allow all citizens to ride public buses with equal dignity. In Birmingham, he worked to permit all persons to enter stores, restaurants, hotels, and other public places with equal dignity. In Selma, he worked to make sure that each of us could enter the voting booth and cast our vote with equal dignity. In Cairo, Illinois, he worked to help all people have equal housing opportunities. In New York, he spoke up for peace by speaking out against the Vietnam War. Dr. King helped change many things by implementing portions of his dream. But he paid with his life. Know the Dreamer. Understand the dream. Fulfill the dream. EPILOGUE – Sometimes our ignorance allows us to be comfortable. Other times it causes us to be scared. Our ignorance of Dr. King evoked both reactions, one in life and the other in death. That’s why it is critical that we know the Dreamer and the dream. |
26.73% 