The Dream

In preparation for Martin Luther King Jr. Day today, Jude's Second Grade class has been talking quite a bit about civil rights. I have found it extremely interesting to listen to what he brings home about this, and I am greatly heartened and hopeful for the future of America and about the way his generation will deal with race relations.

About a month ago, we happened to have a conversation in which Jude asked me what the Civil War had been all about. Man, that's a toughy. In explaining it to him, I had told him that at one time, long ago, black people had been slaves. "WHAT!?!?" He was shocked. "How could people be so MEAN?!" I found this very difficult to answer, but went on a bit about how people really hadn't known any better, and were afraid of people who were different from them. I told him that far back in history other peoples had been enslaved, that in the bible it tells about how the Jews were the slaves of the Egyptians until Moses led them to freedom. But that over time people had finally learned how very, very wrong it was. I then rambled on for probably a little too long about the economics of the South and agriculture and plantations, and eventually he started talking about Donkey Kong and I was let off the hook.

But then January came, and his social studies lesson for the month is all about MLK, so he came home with much talk about this, and a bit of confusion. He's such an empathic little boy, and he's deeply troubled by issues of social justice, and this all was a little worrisome for him. And he asks good questions.

"Mama? If Abraham Lincoln made the black people free in the super olden timey days, why were people still mean to them in Martin Luther King's time? It was almost 100 years later!"

Why indeed.

"Mama? Did you know that black people used to have to sit in the back of the bus?! Even if there were better seats in the front, they had to all sit back there. That must have been very uncomfortable! Isn't that just mean?!"

Yes, it was.

"Mama? Did you know that the black people used to have all the money?"

Huh?

"Yes. They had so much money that when they stopped riding the bus, the bus owners didn't make ANY money. So they let them sit in the front."

Sigh...

Amazingly, until a couple of years ago, Jude was completely color-blind. He actually didn't know what the terms "black" and "African-American" meant. He described someone as "the boy in the blue shirt". Or maybe "the boy with the brown skin". But "the boy with the brown skin" was just as likely to be a Latino boy, as an African-American boy.  We have some neighbors who have two little daughters, who they adopted from China. At some point, Jimmy described them as "the little Chinese girls". The next day, Jude and I ran into some other neighbor girls, Caucasian girls, and as we were leaving, he asked me "Are those the Chinese girls?" And I realized that he knew that there was a country called China, and he knew that there were some people who had Asian features, but he didn't assume that if someone was from China, they necessarily had Asian features. Interesting, right?

The child truly does not judge people "by the color of their skin but by the content of their character".

An amazing quality which I credit less to Jimmy and my parenting, and more to changes to our society at large. To the work of people like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez,  Mary Bethune, Thurgood Marshall, The Little Rock Nine, Lyndon Baines Johnson. To role models like Gordon and Susan and Maria and Luis on Sesame Street. To the presidency of Barack Obama.

And while I am not so ignorant or idealistic that I don't see the myriad of racial inequalities and prejudices still present in American society, I am extremely optimistic about the future.

So in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I will leave you with the compete text of his famous "I Have a Dream Speech", delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August  28, 1963. We have all heard and read snippets and famous lines from the speech, but I suspect that many people have never read it in it's entirety. It is a brilliantly written and profoundly moving piece of history. I encourage you to take the time and read it all.

Enjoy...

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

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."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Comments

[unmitigated me]

I have listened to a recording of the second half of that speech, while sitting in the seat Rosa Parks was asked to give up on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. I wonder what the world would be like if King were still alive today.

[Michele]

I am proud to say that our boys are color blind also. The only thing we had to do with it was telling granddaddy that he couldn't say bad things about other people (black, white, red, yellow, green, we didn't care) in front of your children or he'd never see them. A threat that he knew we would follow through with. I think it is wonderful that more and more children are color blind.

[Jan]

Our children are very color blind; they sort of have to be, growing up in our family. My ex-husband is Hispanic and my sister's husband is African American; they have four children. One of my uncles is married to an Hispanic woman - they have a daughter - and The Young One's father is now married to a woman from Trinidad, who is of Indian/Pakistani descent; they have a son, which makes all of The Young One's siblings biracial. My kid's godmother is African American and their godfather is not only Hispanic, but gay.

We sort of have this melting pot thing going on, and I'm glad of it.

[Michele Renee]

That Jude does ask great questions.
I am happy to say that my boys were also amazed to hear about the rules and the Jim Crow laws. We live in Atlanta and in our area go to school with the population comprised of much diversity. I have to say as they got older and became very interested in social studies they learned that the U.S. was far from the only country with slavery but the most talked about--maybe due to the civil war? And that Abraham Lincoln did not exactly sign the Emancipation Proclamation to free slaves (and he wrote that the slaves were not equal and should be sent away on ships).
I am very happy that my boys' friends include so many people.

[Lisa]

brillaint. just brillian.

[Sarah at themommylogues]

Today my little kindergartener came home and said, "Mama? I've got good news and bad news. The good news, is today we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. The bad news, but I think you already know, is somebody shot him."

We had a great talk about civil rights, and how everyone should be treated the same even if they're different from you. And even how if someone's getting bullied, no matter why, you should be a friend to that person and stand up for them. My girls were surprised to learn that this took place when Grandma & Papa were in their 20s. I think they assumed it was some sort of ancient time.

And AMEN to the Sesame Street credit. I grew up in a 99.99% Scandinavian community. I mean, you could literally hear Norwegian spoken at the store. And I think the other .01% was German. Sesame Street was my only multi-ethnic exposure, and I am grateful to have had something that made me feel like people were people - end of story.

[Jenni]

Just reading that speech moves me to tears. I'm reading Martin's Big Words to Oscar's preschool class on Wednesday and I'm hoping I don't cry. Or have to explain death.

[Elizabeth]

Thank you for posting the entire speech -- such is its power that I heard it, clearly, in his voice in my head.

[Erica@Pines Lake Redhead]

I would definitely credit your parenting to Jude's big heart and open mind. Good job.