A Modest Dream for Following a King

Eight score years and three years ago, a far greater thinker proclaimed emancipation, a plan to free America from the immoral actions of ignorance. The abolition of slavery was the foresight of a wise man who forged a nation toward a hopeful future of equality. In my elementary classroom and in others across America, educators taught children the brilliance of critical thinking through works such as Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 “Gettysburg Address” and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The demanding voices of these superior leaders set the precedent for developing new leading voices.

I sat listening to a recording that offered me Dr. King’s command of our spoken language. Maybe he planted a subconscious seed that propelled an ambitious child into adulthood, with the intuition that I would eventually use my gifts to achieve. The America I observe and write about does not tolerate racism as a basis for believing in radical superiority linked to political ideologies favoring Caucasian rule. I have never regarded skin color as a means of illustrating division among humanity. Unfortunately, racism lives. I still hope that a child's admiration persists, even if they barely understand the complex words used to express a moral dedication to fairness.

We should question whether President Lincoln himself ignited the ‘flames of withering injustice,' as Dr. King proposed, since Lincoln aimed to provide ‘a beacon of light for millions of African American slaves’ (King, 1963). The speech celebrated this stance, describing it as 'a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.' However, the harsh reality persisted, with the sobering statement that, “But 100 years later the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still badly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination” (King, 1963). I hold dear the formidable impression that love offers a nation willing to consider a way forward—change. Together, given the goodness of the virtues taught through Jesus Christ’s unconditional love, we have potential.

Reading Dr. King’s resourcefulness leaves a strong mark of intellect; he wrote, “We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline” (King, 1963). Dignity and discipline guided me beyond abuses that trapped me in an adolescent mentality where neither existed to raise my conscience. Members of my family tried hard to force racism into the immature beliefs of a child who knew such concepts had no place in logic or appropriateness. King passionately stated, “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood” (King, 1963). I often wonder, after living in the North and South, whether the love Dr. King preached, if history bends toward it, would ever make racism cease to separate our nation?

The soul of a man is the consciousness of a nation. I leave you with the last paragraph Dr. King wrote to persuade every human conscience. He insisted, “When we allow freedom to ring—when we let it ring from every city 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, Great God a-mighty, We are free at last” (King, 1963). His wisdom sanctimoniously arms us with dignity and discipline as an existing species responsible for being. Every man or woman can be the difference we seek, as justifiable warriors fighting for a far better appreciation of the bloodshed throughout history.

Intellectual ownership has historically endeavored to heal our nation; however, ignorance has become deeply ingrained in America’s foundational principles, which we could have abolished long ago through honesty and education. Racists should not have a place in a dream, forcing nightmares on the present. Racism has reached into every aspect of human nationality, so we must stop proving it exists in individuality.

Reference: King, Martin Luther, Jr. “I Have a Dream.” Speech, 28 Aug. 1963, Washington, DC. American

Rhetoric, www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm.