This week we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, the only individual honored by a national holiday in our country. Additionally, there are more than 900 cities, nearly three-fourths of them in the Southeast, which named streets after him. A magnificent granite sculpture of him gazes in perpetuity across the mall in Washington, D.C. These honors are not a tribute by black America or white America but express reverence of all citizens of a great country for a great man.
While we cannot credit Dr. King with all the accomplishments in civil rights and advancements in race relations, we can credit his life, teaching and death for helping Americans debate and work earnestly to move our country forward not as blacks or whites, but as Americans.
As a white child, I remember the news images of peacefully protesting blacks met by armed police and dogs in Selma, Ala. It was a sad time, not just for blacks, but for most Americans. Shortly afterward, Congress passed the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It was the right thing to do. Along with the Voting Rights Act, a plethora of legislation followed to ensure equal opportunity for everyone in education, housing, police protection, jobs and many other areas.
But it wasn’t only Dr. King’s leadership at the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma that made him immortal in our history. His wise commentary, presented with power and elegance, resonated not only with blacks but with all Americans. People of all races are still moved by his passionate oratory urging us to focus on a higher national character: justice, freedom, respect, work ethic and love.
Were there and are there still skeptics whose hearts are hardened with hate and racial prejudice? Of course, but they quickly earned places on the ash heap of history. The door to healing was opened, and much good has been accomplished. For those of us who came of age in the late 1960s, we saw the world in a different light. We went to school with black, Hispanic and Asian kids, played sports together, acted together in school plays, worked at part-time jobs, served (many died) alongside them in the military, and socialized with them in college. We recognized that they could be as friendly, funny, smart and hard working as other kids. We came to judge them, as Dr. King said, not for their skin but for their character. We can ask no more of those we encounter as we travel life’s highway than to respect us for who we are.