tonymcewing's Blog

     This month we commemorate the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It's the perfect opportunity of course to reflect upon how much progress has been made in achieving Dr. King's  dream.  In many ways, April 4, 1968 seems like a lifetime  ago. 1968 was just four years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act  by Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2nd, 1964. That act prohibited discrimination in public places,  provided for the integration of public schools, (as required by the landmark US Supreme Court decision Brown vs The Board of Education in 1954), the desegregation of other public facilities as well as making employment discrimination illegal. It was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. And no one seriously believes it would ever have happened without the efforts of the modern civil rights movement, which had been led by Dr. King since the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man as was required by law at that time.              Yes, it all seems like a lifetime ago. But it wasn't. I am years away from being called a senior citizen and yet I vividly remember the segregated water fountains in the South--Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, where many of my relatives are from. No, I didn't read about the "colored only" fountains or just see them in photos or on film, I saw them with my own eyes. I also remember my sisters and brother and I going into a restaurant in Mississippi one afternoon to place an order for our family while my mother and stepfather remained in the car. When we stepped into the restaurant, all activity and conversation seemed to grind to a very conspicuous and uncomfortable halt. When we placed our order, the cashier was clear that we could not dine inside and the order had to be "to go."  As we waited for our food, I could see all the patrons and waitresses were white. I also noticed all the cooks and dishwashers in the kitchen through the order window. They were all black. I remember thinking, even at that very young age, here are all these black people working in a restaurant in which they are not allowed to dine. I couldn't wait to get out of that place.                I also have equally unpleasant memories of walking down a dirt road with my grandmother and younger sister in Arkansas some years later. We had been walking for several miles in the heat of the day and were very thirsty. We happened upon this small mom and pop general store and decided to get something to drink. We were met at the front door by someone I assume was the owner who told us "coloreds have to use the back door." As odious and offensive as that was, it was quite mild by comparison to my grandmother's retort. Suffice it to say my grandma didn't need much motivation to let loose with a string of obscenities that would make a hundred sailors blush. So it goes without saying that his demand that we use the back entrance was more than enough to provoke my grandmother to unleash. And needless to say I can't repeat a single word of her colorful response to his, ummm, request.     I bring up these experiences not to dwell on the past or open old wounds, but to hammer home the point that while such segregation and discrimination, often sanctioned by the government, may seem unfathomable to anyone under 30, in the timeline of human history, indeed in the timeline of this country's history, it wasn't very long ago.     So why does it matter? It matters because barely 40 years ago, blacks, particularly in the South, insisted on their right to vote and equal justice and protection under the law, frequently risking and all too often losing their lives in the process. 40 years later, a man of half African descent could become the presidential nominee of a major political party and stands a good chance of being elected President of these United States. Even if he doesn't become the nominee, a woman will--another historical first nearly as unimaginable four decades ago. It is not anything I ever thought I'd see in my lifetime. And it says a lot about how much progress can be made in a relatively short period of time once people are willing to allow intellect, logic and our innate sense of justice to overrule and override the prejudices, misconceptions, unfounded fears and insecurities we all harbor.     Have we arrived? No. Has Dr. King's dream been fulfilled? Of course not. Is there still much, much more left to do? Certainly. Our public education systems are a mess, our healthcare system is perhaps a bigger mess, the gulf between the haves and the have nots seems to be widening almost daily, just to name a few issues. But the point of this blog is not to focus on all the things yet to be done. We can do that another time. But rather, to look at what we've already accomplished in such a short span of time. We really have come a long way. And therein lies the possibility of hope of where we can go from here. If you look at the OVERWHELMING accomplishments we've achieved, thanks in large measure to the dream of one man who was able to inspire a nation and multiple generations, then what's left to be done might not look quite as OVERWHELMING. We owe it to Dr. King, to ourselves, to our nation's posterity and every principle our Constitution has come to embody to keep Dr. King's dream alive and continue moving forward. If we commit even a fraction of the energy and will that he exhibited, imagine how far along we might be ten years from now, let alone 40.