"Fifty years ago on August 28 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech at the foot...
Fifty years ago on August 28 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
A pastor and the figurehead of the civil rights movement in the US, King used the Bible and the US Declaration of Independence to help shape those iconic words.
"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," said King in the most memorable part of the speech.
The US abolished slavery in 1865 after the Civil War. However, the fact remained that in many states black people were still treated as second-class citizens.
Founded in the same year as slavery was abolished, the Ku Klux Klan created a climate of terror for black people. In addition, there was racial segregation in the south.
John W Franklin, with the Smithsonian's National Museum of African-American History & Culture described the segregation in the US capital.
"Right here in Washington there were no restaurants in this part of town where I could have gone or my parents could have gone to eat. None of the hotels in this part of town would have accepted African-Americans as guests. None of the hospitals would have accepted African-Americans as patients. There was a small section of black (Washington) DC where there were banks and stores and only in those stores could African Americans try on clothes," said Franklin.
Resistance to segregation was mainly organised by Baptist churches. Martin Luther King was the head of the congregation at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
A black woman being arrested in Montgomery for not giving up her seat on the bus for a white passenger, led to a campaign by black people refusing to use the city's bus service.
That woman was Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King helped organise the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott.
King encouraged nonviolent protests such as sit-ins, marches and boycotts of companies that discrimated against black people.
The civil rights leader was jailed during the 1963 campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, where desegregation was being strongly resisted by many white people.
"In May of that year - in Birmingham, Alabama - there had been a children's campaign where elementary and high school students left class to go demonstrate in the streets," recalled Franklin.
"This is also the dawn of television, not only in the United States but across the world, and the images that Americans saw, black white, Latino, Asian, and how these children were attacked by fire hoses, adults were attacked by these police dogs, really seared the nation's conscience," he explained.
The famous speech, which became a high point for the civil rights movement, came during what was official known as the 'March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom'.
President John F. Kennedy, who had spoken out in favour of civil rights, was assassinated three months later.
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The US federal government now had the power to end segregation in the southern states and it became easier for black people to vote.
King was shot dead on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 3, 1968.
Johnson announced a national day of mourning three days later on April 7.
A week of race riots in several US cities after King's death was contrary to the nonviolence he had advocated while he was alive, but many black people felt there was still a long way to go.
Many still do, according to Franklin."
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"I have a dream that one day my children will be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin." Dr. Martin Luther King, the leader of the African-American civil and equal rights movement of the 1960s.
Dr. King was not the only leader, but the leader as far as his importance and what he accomplished for that community. And I'm just quoting what he said in his 1963 March on Washington in his I Have a Dream speech. Dr. King, at the very least wanted an America where his family and the African-American community, would no longer be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Even if Dr. King he didn't mean that for America as a whole, let's apply it to the rest of the country anyway. Let's create an America where individuals are judged simply as that, as individuals and not members of this group or any other group. But simply as people and what they have to offer and where they come up short simply as individuals. That is what the vision of a color and race-blind country would be.
Whether someone is racist towards one race of American or another, they're still racists. If you judge people simply by their race and decide they should be denied access in America simply because of their race, even if your attentions are good, you're guilty of racism. No matter what race you're a member of and what race or races you intend to benefit and what race or races you seek to deny. Racism is the opposite of a color and race-blind country. That is not Dr. King's dream, but the exact opposite of it.
How well and how better off would we be as a country if racism and other forms of bigotry, whether they'r targeted against people simply because of their ethnicity religion, gender, or sexuality. We're not talking about levels of poverty that we are today if racism is simply not part of the picture. Because no one would be denied schools and employment, simply because of their race or any other characteristic that's part of their DNA. And to say that this group of Americans has been denied access because of their race, now we have to benefit those people by denying other races, is also racism. But from a different direction.
Racism even if it's used to benefit other groups at the expense of different groups, is still racism. And goes against Dr. King's dream of a color and race-blind country. What we should do instead is make Dr. King's dream a reality. And outlaw the use of racism when it's used to deny any American access, simply because of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexuality. Whether it comes from the private sector or government. And instead don't automatically notice one's complexion when you first seem them and think they must be this way, because this is how they look. But instead see a person and someone you can either get along with and work with or not, because of how you individually relate with each other as people, but because of how you were born and how you look.
That I believe is the America that Dr. King wanted an America that worked for everybody based on what you did for it and what you did for yourself to make yourself the most productive and successful person you can be. But not because of how you were born and your racial characteristics.
