This upcoming Martin Luther King holiday may be America’s most important one yet. On the heels of 2020 and 2021, in which we saw the greatest racial reckoning in America since the 1960s, a historic national election, a pandemic that killed over 700,000 citizens, and Great Depression level unemployment, the issues posed by Dr. King’s work could not be more critical.
Earlier this year, the nation inaugurated Joe Biden, our 46th president, in a fervent attempt to radically shift the direction of the Trump years. In a whirlwind package of executive orders in his first few hours on the job, President Biden immediately revoked Trump’s 1776 Report, announced on MLK day. This report and educational plan were an effort to push Trump-sanctioned “patriotic education” designed to minimize the impact of US slavery.
Although Biden is charting a new and refreshing course in this nation, over 70 million Americans thought our previous leadership represented them. This nation is truly at a crossroads. Will we judge ourselves strictly by the economic and social successes of a few or by the persistent suffering and exclusion of millions? Will we judge ourselves by the “content of our character?”
In this important week, we must stop and ask the question, can we overcome? The perception of America as the land of opportunity is in great jeopardy. Although pockets of opportunity have existed for many, the United States has never truly been close to fulfilling its founding promises. As Dr. King said, “America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.” The ugly scars of injustice and inequality are a persistent part of the American identity rather than the anomaly that many like to believe.
America has perpetuated a multigenerational caste system that would put nations like India to shame. According to the Economic Policy Institute, US mobility is among the lowest of major industrialized economies. Our dirty little secret is that the income and educational level of a person’s parents has a tremendous impact on their life chances. The idea that millions of Americans pick themselves up by their bootstraps and move drastically beyond where their parents landed is increasingly a myth. However, millions cling tightly to what is possible.
It is the reason that generations of marginalized groups have continued to hope beyond hope. In Dr. King’s final speech he says, “All we say to America is, ‘Be true to what you said on paper.’ If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges because they hadn’t committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.”
Dr. King is truly an American hero. We should celebrate this fact. Yet, if we remember his role as a dreamer, and forget his role as a social agitator, spiritual prophet, and champion for the disaffected, we will miss the very purpose of his work. In 2022 as the Biden administration picks up the pieces of a broken nation, we can never forget the continued relevance of Dr. King’s unfinished mission.
Opinion News by Ted Williams III
Sources:
Economic Policy Institue: U.S. lags behind peer countries in mobility
American Rhetoric: Martin Luther King, Jr.
Inset Image Courtesy of DWilliams’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Top And Featured Image Courtesy of GregReese – Creative Commons License
