News & Events
IN THE NEWS
A DREAM DEFERRED
It's been 48 years since the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his profound "I Have a Dream" speech in which he challenged and demanded America uphold racial equality and end discrimination and segregation. Since that defining moment of the civil-rights movement, countless others have recited the inspiring lines, "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 my four little 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. …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 together at a table of brotherhood. … I have a dream today!"
Year after year, those gathered to celebrate King's legacy tremble and weep as he proclaims those powerful last words, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
What is often overlooked is the charge he gave us for direct action now! On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, King implored that we act swiftly: "We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice."
His commentary about equal protection under the law — waiting on the status of citizen has never been more relevant than today as thousands of citizens in our community continue to struggle for freedom. King insisted that racial justice was inextricably tied to economic justice. Racism, sexism, sexual-orientation bias and discrimination and economic disparity are not memories of a distant past. They are constant reminders that we have not yet reached the Promised Land.
Constant reminders that we have resegregated our public schools. Constant reminders that there are vast achievement gaps between white, black and Hispanic students. Constant reminders that four out of 10 families headed by single mothers live in poverty. Constant reminders that African-Americans are nearly five times more likely to live in poverty than whites. Constant reminders of race-based residential segregation. Constant reminders like the recent anti-gay comments from a Mecklenburg commissioner regarding "Don't Ask Don't Tell." Constant reminders that force us to re-examine our complacency.
When I think of the responsibility of freedom, I am reminded of something my mother often said to me as a young child. As the offspring of a black father and white mother, I was taught that it is our collective responsibility to fight for equality. The racially integrated groups of students that traveled throughout the South during the 1961 Freedom Rides demonstrated that the oppressed and the oppressor can and should seek freedom together.
From a tiny jail cell in Birmingham, King wrote, "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."
My mom, Susanne, is a white Jewish social-justice, civil-, human- and women's-rights activist. She would say that white people had an obligation and a responsibility to oppose and eradicate racism in all its forms. She was the first person to communicate to me the idea of white privilege, male privilege, and while I didn't quite have the words yet to define it — hetero-normative privilege.
It is our collective responsibility as human beings, whether we identify as affluent or poor, heterosexual or LGBTQ, male or female, black or white — to ensure that all of us have the freedoms that King dreamed would one day be possible. It is our collective responsibility to hold ourselves and our community to standards that ensure all of our citizens have policies that protect them from harassment and violence. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that we create access to quality health care and education. It is our collective responsibility to insist upon equitable and fair wages. It is our collective responsibility to begin … again … this work — now !
I remember as a young girl marching to the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, long before it was transformed into the National Civil Rights Museum or our nation celebrated the King holiday. Then, it was still an hourly-rate, seedy franchise with a dilapidated swimming pool near the balcony where King was assassinated. We sang freedom songs and listened to civil-rights giants Andrew Young, John Lewis, Ralph David Abernathy and Jesse Jackson recount the horrors and joys of the movement. Stories of The Poor People's Campaign, the resistance against the war in Vietnam, and the Memphis Sanitation Strike resonated in my dreams and inspired me to become a freedom fighter.
We have both King's deferred dream and great legacy seeping throughout our community. There are individuals and organizations like the ECHO Council, CHANGE, the City of Winston-Salem Human Relations Commission and Green Street Methodist Church that rally and work to build coalitions to eradicate the real and perceived barriers that separate us. The responsibility rests upon our shoulders to ensure that the legacy continues.
The road to freedom is long and arduous.
Tracy Chapman sings, "If not now, then when/if not now, what then/we all must live our lives/always feeling/always thinking/the moment has arrived/if not now, then when?"
By CHEVARA ORRIN
