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Nearly 49 years have passed since Martin Luther King’s assassination, which helps explain why many Americans today lack a deep understanding of his identity and contributions.
Schoolchildren across recent generations have learned the Martin Luther King story well. Yet elementary school textbooks struggle to capture the magnitude of the transformative change he catalyzed throughout the nation. For those under 50, Martin Luther King represents simply another figure in history. But those who lived through the 1960s—an era marked by racial segregation in half the country and overt racism in the other—recognize him as among America’s greatest leaders. His powerful rhetoric and unwavering dedication fundamentally altered the course of American race relations, a subject historians sometimes call the Original Sin of the American experience.
Despite significant progress over the past 50 years in racial equality, we must acknowledge that substantial work remains before we can truly claim that all Americans are evaluated by the content of their character rather than their skin color, as Dr. King articulated during his 1963 Lincoln Memorial speech.
A movement exists in our nation intent on reversing many hard-won advances from the past five decades, and Congress, the Supreme Court, and the President have shown willingness to support this reversal. Recent police killings of African-Americans represent only one visible manifestation of deeper problems. More troubling are court decisions eliminating crucial voting rights protections, the disproportionate prosecution and imprisonment of minorities for drug offenses, and voter ID requirements and gerrymandering across numerous states that, according to a federal court in North Carolina, work with surgical precision to deny people of color fair representation at every governmental level.
We frequently ask ourselves, “fblikebutton_button” What would Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. do?”fblikebutton_button” While we cannot know with certainty, we recognize that despite King’s lifetime achievements, he would grasp that the work for which he sacrificed his life remains incomplete—and we must hope his legacy of courage and determination continues inspiring present and future generations to build a society where all people receive dignity and respect.