A 'Great Dream,' Still Deferred
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Submitted by FFE on 07/10/2008 11:53 PM
- Category: Speeches
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A 'Great Dream,' Still Deferred
It's been almost 30 years since that Thursday afternoon when a man launched a bullet in a modest neighborhood in Memphis, Tenn., and found his mark standing on a motel balcony.
The shot hit Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in the neck. He slumped to the balcony floor and died two hours later.
As a nation conditioned to five- and 10-year commemorations, we haven't paid much attention to the anniversary of his death in the intervening years. But despite the absence of conspicuous memorials, April 4 should be remembered for its indelible imprint on history. It was, after all, yet another day that will live in infamy, for it was the day the dreamer died.
The dream -- of content over packaging, of equal regard and equal opportunity, of a nation living up to the true meaning of its creed -- may yet survive, but it has never since found so splendid a voice as King's.
His were the words that gave the idea logic. His was the rhythm that made the thought dance so gracefully. His was the diplomacy to, at once, call us on the carpet for what we had done wrong without implying that we deserved no good faith, without telling us we were incorrigible.
Implicit in King's dream-weaving -- beyond the dream itself -- was the sublime notion that it was all possible. That we could do it. That a dream, it may have been, but not a fantasy.
But the events of April 4, 1968, broke the hopeful spell and, suddenly, the difficult, beleaguered work of making a dream real seemed utterly futile, if not naive. Why bother with patience and prayerfulness and contemplation when even they are despised to the point of murder?
The civil rights movement, such as it is, has never been the same. No one has been able to replicate King's charisma or inherit his disciples. There is not even the cohesion of spirit there once was. What progress there has been since King's assassination has had the woeful effect of dulling the senses and disguising the truth...
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