More Than a Dream, It’s an Attitude
When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others set about changing our society with the civil rights movement, it was about attitude. They wanted to change sensibilities about race.
On Monday we will honor Dr. King because he galvanized the American spirit and brought out the best in us. We will also be honoring the best in ourselves.
Leaders of black Americans believed that race shouldn’t matter in the public arena. Dr. King and others sought racial opportunity in job acquisition, housing and in schools and other public institutions.
In Oxnard, civic leaders and other Ventura County residents will gather to acknowledge Dr. King’s birthday, where we are today and more importantly, where we are going. We will hear from Bedford Pinkard, the only African American member of the Oxnard City Council. Mayor Manuel Lopez and Supervisor John Flynn will also be on the dais to extol the significance of this man and this day.
I hope they acknowledge others who walked with Dr. King. They include the Rev. Vernon Johns, King’s predecessor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. Johns used the pulpit to fight racial police brutality and segregated public accommodations. He also modeled economic self sufficiency by setting up a vegetable and fruit stand outside the church.
When we sing the praises of Dr. King, we thank Rosa Parks for her bravery and courage. We also honor Viola Liuzzo, the white Detroit housewife and mother of five who gave her life during a 1965 march for democracy and a nonracial society.
Let us not forget James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, the college students who were murdered as they attempted to make democracy a reality in Mississippi by helping poor rural Negroes register to vote.
When we listen to the testimonials Monday, we should also give testimony to Fannie Lou Hamer. A deposed sharecropper, Hamer was committed to ridding the rural Mississippi society of racism and poverty. She formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and registered thousands of poor Negroes to vote. Her efforts earned her a severe beating yet she persisted up to her last days, fighting poverty and injustice. We must keep her spirit alive in us and carry forth the fight.
We must also keep in our hearts the nuns, rabbis and schoolchildren who participated in marches throughout the South. Those who were set upon by police with billy clubs, cattle prods and fire hoses.
There are scores of people of all races and cultures whom we will honor Monday when we honor Dr. King, too many to list. I know that when I honor and praise him I am also praising my mother and father and my extended family.
It is hard to say what causes Dr. King would support if he were alive today. Based on some of his speeches, I believe that he would want the U.S. government to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves. It is not the money that matters but the acknowledgment that government and individuals must right a wrong. Laws by state, city and local governments denied basic rights to African Americans, and the federal government’s lack of enforcement of constitutional guarantees aided these actions of state governments and individuals.
In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. King mentioned the promissory note that the American governments have not promulgated. I would hope that not only our local leaders but state and national leaders address the cleansing of the American soul.