by:  Diane Benjamin

Today the Pantagraph issued a “jeer” because no area towns held events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Martin Luther King “I have a dream” speech.  Maybe “why” deserves a look. Here’s a link to the written speech:  http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf Some parts you may not remember:

We have also come  to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now.  This is no time to engage the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.  Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy.  Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.  Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.  Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

It was a magnificent speech full of hope and anticipation of equality.  America had seen enough injustice on the nightly on the news.  Enough water cannons, enough police brutality, enough of blatant racism.  MLK’s dream that “. .  my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” was well the way to being true, then the race-baiters learned they could make money and stay in power by telling blacks nothing had changed.

Electing a black President made it worse.  Obama never misses an opportunity jab whites with lies and ignore blacks not living up to the “dream”. It appears Obama, Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson would like nothing more than a race war.   Maybe it has already started.  The news lately is full of attacks on white by blacks with the Trayvon Martin verdict used to justify it.  The problem is they are also lying about that incident-all the way to Oprah.

There were no celebrations because there is nothing to celebrate.  The “dream” has been set back decades.   Blacks are lied to a told things like showing an ID to vote is racist.  Showing one to buy alcohol or board a plane evidently isn’t.  Conservative blacks are ridiculed because they left the Democrat’s plantation and found true freedom.   Anybody who believes in the Constitution, which is the law and has been for over 200 years, is vilified.

Meanwhile, millions of us believe in judging a person by their character.  Marriages between races will continue.  Those inspired by the “Dream” will continue to be told nothing has changed.  Until the race baiting industry is put out of business, true equality can not exist.  Blacks have to do that themselves.

I have a dream too.  I dream of the day when we can all stand together as MLK said to end his speech:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.   Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.   Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside. Let freedom ring . . .

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 almighty, We are free at last.”

Maybe we can celebrate on the 55th or 60th anniversary.  Dividing the country by race on purpose has to end first.  I’m sure somebody will even call this post racist.  And so it continues . . .