This coming Wednesday is the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream Speech" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It was one of his most profound and eloquent addresses. This past week here in DC has been a celebration of that moment, the advances made, and workshops to help young people understand the progress, and prepare them to continue it into the future.
Our own Raine and Scoopster attended a reenactment of the march on Saturday (I had a previous engagement that I could not get out of). The advances of our society since Aug 28, 1963 are certainly affirming, most notably a bi-racial president (who is identified as black), elected and re-elected by an obvious majority of voters in this country. People of color are or have held offices such as Attorney General and Secretary of State. Rights for other groups (such as women and LGBT people) have been recognized and legalized through the years.
There is still a lot of progress to be made, however. Voting rights being curtailed by targeted laws, police over-reaction and an often blase response to it, lingering education problems in inner cities are but a few. There is also the problem of mindset, and that is a much tougher nut to crack. Among some quarters (and unfortunately often those in power), there is a growing resistance to change that might help level the playing field for all. This resistance manifests itself in blame.
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