Dr. Martin Luther King once said: “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” I will always admire Dr. King for his approach to segregation and racism. Especially when you see pictures like these. They were taken by Gordon Parks for Life Magazine in 1956. He was the first black staff photographer for Life. On one hand, I find these pictures incredibly compelling and beautiful. Yet on the other hand, it’s sickening to think that at one point there were “colored entrances” and “colored drinking fountains.” I read a quote in Life Magazine in 1956 from the wife of a white sharecropper in North Carolina. She was explaining why she wouldn’t let her 9 year old daughter play with her 8 year-old black neighbor. She said: “If our landlord came down here and saw her playing with a colored boy, he wouldn’t respect us. Only poor class whites do that. We’re trying to keep our self-respect and keep the highest level socially we can. We’re willing to work with the Negroes, but that’s as far as we’ll go.” I will never understand that kind of thinking. We’ve come a long way since then. But we’re still not there. All of which makes what Dr. Martin Luther King said on that hot summer day in 1963 still so poignant. He told a huge crowd on the Lincoln Memorial: We’ve come to our Nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution 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. And so, weve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of 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 that one day, 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! Dr Martin Luther King August 28, 1963 Washington, D.C.
Posted on: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 20:26:48 +0000
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