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Monday, January 19, 2009
Has Obama made Dr. King’s vision come true?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Historically, black Americans have been more likely than white Americans to believe that racism remains a major problem. But a new CNN poll on the eve of Barack Obama’s inauguration reverses those numbers:
WASHINGTON (CNN) — More than two-thirds of African-Americans believe Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision for race relations has been fulfilled, a CNN poll found — a figure up sharply from a survey in early 2008….
The poll found 69 percent of blacks said King’s vision has been fulfilled in the more than 45 years since his 1963 “I have a dream” speech — roughly double the 34 percent who agreed with that assessment in a similar poll taken last March.
But whites remain less optimistic, the survey found.
“Whites don’t feel the same way — a majority of them say that the country has not yet fulfilled King’s vision,” CNN polling director Keating Holland said. However, the number of whites saying the dream has been fulfilled has also gone up since March, from 35 percent to 46 percent.
So according to CNN’s poll, white Americans are a third LESS likely than black Americans to believe that King’s vision has been realized. How do you explain that?
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Tuesday, America’s promise will be kept
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On Jan. 20, 2008, a longshot candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination came to Atlanta to speak at the home church of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the occasion of the King holiday.
That isn’t so long ago, but a lot has changed. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, their homes or both; many others lucky enough to still collect paychecks are anxious about their future and that of their family, and roughly $7 trillion in value has disappeared from Wall Street, destroying not just wealth but confidence.
Much has changed for that one-time longshot as well. Tomorrow, one year to the day from his speech in Atlanta, Barack Obama will take the oath of office, becoming our nation’s 44th president and our first of African heritage.
To celebrate the event, Americans of every race, creed and age are converging by the millions on Washington. Hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, both in this country and around the world, will gather to watch on television as Obama delivers his inaugural address, probably the most anticipated in living memory.
In fact, the popularity and even reverence in which Obama is already held by some is a little disconcerting. Part of it can be attributed to Obama’s own gifts, and part to an eagerness to change leadership after eight years under a president widely perceived as a failure. But there’s also a whiff of desperation to the fervor, a sense that the crowd wants more from Obama than any one person can deliver.
I suspect Obama will say as much in his address. If his past rhetoric is any guide, he will speak in terms of “we,” not of “I,” stressing the idea that he alone, and government alone, cannot solve our problems. In fact, he may draw heavily on the dual themes of his speech a year ago at Ebenezer Baptist, in which he preached about the importance of unity and the power of hope.
In that speech, Obama noted the importance that King himself had placed upon unity as a force for good.
“‘Unity is the great need of the hour. Unity is how we shall overcome’,” Obama said, quoting King. “It is the great need of this hour as well. Not because it sounds pleasant; not because it makes us feel good; but because it’s the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country.”
That deficit, Obama said, was not the budget deficit or trade deficit, but a moral deficit. A people that no longer thought it important to look out for one another —- that in fact saw it as a sign of weakness —- could not thrive in the years ahead, he suggested. But through unity and sacrifice, the hope of progress could never be a false hope.
“Imagining and then fighting for and struggling for and sometimes dying for what didn’t seem possible before —- there are no false hopes in that,” Obama said. “Imagine if John F. Kennedy had looked up at the moon and said, ‘That’s too far —- false hopes, we can’t go there.’ Imagine if Dr. King had stood on the Lincoln Memorial and said, ‘Y’all go home. We can’t overcome.’”
Earlier this month, Obama and his family paid a visit of their own to the Lincoln Memorial, a step widely interpreted as evidence of Obama’s interest in Lincoln. Presidents have long found comfort in stories of their predecessors. President Bush, for example, has cited his own father, along with Ronald Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman, as his role models.
Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking out at the reflecting pool and beyond it to the Capitol, Obama probably had thoughts of King as well.
On those same steps in 1963, speaking on live national television, King stressed the importance of acting in “the fierce urgency of now.”
King spoke of the power of unity, noting that “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.”
In that same speech, of course, King also spoke of his hopes for America, his dream that one day this country would make good on its promise of equality and freedom. Obama is proof that too was not a false hope.
