Sixty years ago today, the greatest demonstration for civil rights in this country was held.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave one of the twentieth century’s greatest orations when he delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech.
Sixty years later, not only is Dr. King’s dream unfulfilled, but many conditions for Black Americans and other People of Color are worse.
In 1963, Black Americans were subject to being killed by lynchings.
Sixty years later, the rope and the fist have largely been replaced by handheld weapons of mass destruction called assault weapons.
Weapons that are too easily available, and often wielded by White Supremacists enmeshed in hate.
All manner of excuses are given as reasons for the widespread bloodshed – video games, television and movie violence, mental illness. Everything and anything but the proliferation of military-grade weapons created for combat, and that should only be in the hands of the armed forces and law enforcement.
Sixty years ago, our voting rights were limited nationwide and non-existent in the South.
There were segregated facilities across the nation.
Sixty years later, what protections provided by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Acts of 1965 have been eviscerated.
States are enacting voting laws that dilute the votes of People of Color and the poor, who tend to vote for a particular party.
States are attempting to enact laws that allow state legislatures or the governor to invalidate voting results. The states that are doing this are states where a particular party are in the majority.
Dreams deferred are not necessarily dreams that will be denied forever, but being Black in America isn’t easier sixty years later.
Black Americans live in a nether world where we overcome societal PTSD to live among many who see us as subhuman.
We deal with the same misguided hatred we have dealt with since we were first brought here.
Freer, but still not free enough.
Enslaved not with fetters, but by laws attempting to erase our history.
Shackled by societal fear of wokeness.
Imprisoned by a disdain for any program or theory that acknowledges the truth of chattel slavery.
We are judged as savage and ignorant if we choose violence.
We are considered unreasonable and ungrateful if we choose to kneel rather than stand.
We are condemned no matter what we say or do.
And yet…
We are mostly people of faith.
We believe in God, much more than we believe in the promise of a fair and free country.
We believe that all wrongs are eventually righted.
We hold on to dear life to this faith,
Which sustains more than the Bill of Rights,
Nourishes us more that the Constitution,
Undergirds us more than a fifty-star flag.
This is the truth we hold to be self-evident.
We hold fast to our faith and a fact that Frederick Douglass stated many years ago.
A fact that Dr. King and his cohorts understood too well.
That fact is that we must pray not only with our lips,
But also our feet.