I Have a Dream

        Last week marked fifty years since Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in Detroit.  Dr. King was a great American and I applaud his non-violent work for integration.  His death was a tragedy. 

 I was fortunate enough to hear Dr. King give a speech two years before.  Dr. King was the keynote speaker for a national Luther League convention I attended in Miami Beach.  This was the summer of 1961 between my junior and senior years of high school.

Dr. King’s speech at the convention made me so mad that I walked out of the auditorium.  The point of his speech was that all white people were racists and discriminated against blacks.  He didn’t know me, and I did not think he had the right to call me a racist.  I did not consider myself a racist and I certainly did not think all white people were racist.  I considered labeling all whites as racists to be a racist statement by Dr. King and it made me so made I got up and left.  Unfortunately, the auditorium was so large that nobody noticed my protest except for a few of my friends.  Yes, I do think blacks can be racists too, but maybe they have a better excuse for their racism.  

This last year I watched a documentary about the freedom riders in the summer of 1961.  These people were riding buses to Mississippi in the name of equal rights. The way they were treated by some southern whites was hard to believe.  It was a dark time in our history.  Change can be very hard. 

Dr. King was present during the early days of the freedom rides, but left before people were actually jailed.  Some people criticized him for leaving, but no mention was made of where or why he had left except it was because of prior commitments.  I then put together the timing of events and realized that Dr. King had left Mississippi to come to Miami Beach and be the keynote speaker for our Luther League convention.  This gave me a different perspective on his speech.  When I considered what he had just witnessed in Mississippi, I could understand why he might feel all whites were racist.  We all need to be sympathetic for what other people have experienced.

I recognize some people are still racist for various reasons based on their past personal experiences.  I have to admit I have a prejudice based on past experiences.  This prejudice is based on a small personal sample that doesn’t happen to involve blacks, but it does influence me. 

I hope we are past discrimination based on race, religion or sex to the point we can eliminate quotas and treat all people as equal based on who they are and what they have to offer.  There was a time when affirmative action was warranted.  I hope we are past that time.