In the 50 years since Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech,” fewer than half of Americans say the country has made substantial progress towards racial equality.
When I participated in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, I was fortunate to witness an exquisite example of Dr. King’s oratory, but I did not then understand the full meaning of King’s concluding “I Have a Dream” speech. Only after his widow, Coretta Scott King, chose me to edit her late husband’s papers did I begin to appreciate Dr. King’s most famous speech in the broader context of his life and times. In cogent, metaphorically rich passages, his speech expressed the universal longing for freedom and justice.
After months of hearings, Ghana’s Supreme Court justices will put to rest, this week, a challenge to the election of 2012, creating a possible scenario of bitter if not violent feuding between the two major parties.
I was privileged to attend the March on Washington in 1963, and count it as one of the most profound experiences of my life. The sheer outpouring of thousands of people, particularly Black people, was a testament to our aspirations and determination to win jobs, justice and freedom. The March proved to be a decisive moment in the Black Freedom Struggle and for the nation. August 24th I was privileged to attend the Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington (MOW).
As the nation celebrates the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, there is a strong temptation to get stuck in a kind of nostalgia for the good old days of a simpler civil rights movement; a movement without angry Black people, afros and shattered glass. And in that nostalgia, sweep under the rug that, although the civil rights movement helped all people live better lives, it was unabashedly a movement borne out of Black organizing traditions to improve the lives of Black people.
The President must use anniversary to speak clearly on racial justice.
This Wednesday, Aug. 28, on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous “Dream” oration, President Barack Obama will speak from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, joined by former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Much of the press is speculating about whether the president can reach the “King standard.” Can he deliver an address with the poetry and the vision that made Dr. King’s speech timeless? But I suggest to you that this is the wrong standard by which to measure the president. Barack Obama isn’t the leader of a March on …
Tens of thousands of people gathered in the nation’s capital on Saturday to mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, originally held on August 28, 1963.
Today we spend the hour with 13-term Congressmember Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, one of the last surviving speakers from the historic 1963 March on Washington, D.C. — which took place 50 years ago this year.
The funny thing about so-called “black leadership” is that much of our perception of black public figures is controlled and managed by predominantly white media. Therefore, it is no coincidence that nearly every prominent black person who speaks firmly for the rights of African Americans has been typecast as either a buffoon, a crook or a greedy, selfish liar.