Civil rights today drifting away from King's dream

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Tweet In August 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and spoke to the masses about his "dream," which called for all men to be treated equally and not "by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

"I have a dream today."

A few short years after King delivered this monologue for which he earned the Nobel Peace Prize, he was assassinated. Since then, King's followers have become some of the most prominent civil rights leaders in the nation, carrying on his spirit and his dream.

"His 'I Have A Dream' speech was about a promise of equality for black people," said Shanta Driver, national spokesperson and co-chairperson for the national civil rights organization Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, & Immigrant Rights And Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary, or BAMN.

"He said, 'I'm going to build a movement, and I'm going to fight it.' We march in the spirit of the man."

Much has changed since the civil rights movement that affects the way race and gender are evaluated in our nation, and the passing of Proposal 2 in Michigan is considered by many to be a step back from King's dream.

Proposal 2, which passed by a margin of 58 percent to 42 percent in November, is a statewide ban of preferential treatment based on skin color or gender in public contracting, public employment and public education.

"We are drifting from the dreams of Martin Luther King because of the pundits and pollsters who perpetuate polarization," said Heaster Wheeler, executive director of the Detroit branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP. "We don't focus on the things that unite us. At the end of the day, most Americans agree that those who are willing to work hard deserve the American dream.

"Issues like that will always go backwards if you leave it to the states," Wheeler said. "There's a concept called the 'tyranny of the majority.' What you saw with the proposal is an exercise of the tyranny of the majority. Just because those proponents may have the majority of the votes, they will never have 100 percent of the power."

Wheeler added that the proposal was virtually unnecessary, as the state was already moving forward. He noted that in 1970, less than 7 percent of students at the University of Michigan were women, and in 1977, because of affirmative action, the number had grown to 27 percent.

"It is a really sad thing not only for the state of Michigan, but for this country, in that particular aspect of affirmative action being removed," said Charles Steele Jr., president and CEO of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, or SCLC, and the NAACP are national organizations that have been fighting for the equality of rights for all races and genders since before the civil rights movement. The SCLC was founded "in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.," according to the organization's Web site.

Steele agreed with Wheeler, saying the proposal was virtually unnecessary and inappropriate for the state of the nation.

"It should have been unthinkable for anyone to try to propose something of this magnitude in today's society," Steele said. "The three problems that Dr. King fought (against) were racism, poverty and balance. What are the three biggest problems in the world today? Racism, poverty and balance.

"It's really going to be a situation where, racially, it's going to be a divide in terms of the embarkment upon the future of trying to bring people together," Steele said. "This is something that should not have happened. We are not ready for this type of negativity in our society."

Civil rights leaders agree that the proposal was something King never would have voted for and wouldn't have found to go hand-in-hand with his dream.

"He would turn in his grave," Wheeler said. "He's speaking to us from his grave. We have not reached that place where all people will be judged by the content of their character. It is no coincidence that Michigan is one of the most segregated states in America."

King fought for all Americans, as mentioned in his speech, "to sit down together at the table of brotherhood" and so "little black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers."

As our society continues to grow and King's vision of boys and girls has grown to be the men and women of our nation, have political leaders and American voters taken steps to build a nation like King proposed, or have we moved in the opposite direction?

"It's an enormous step back from the vision that Dr. King had," Driver said. "It's taking us back to what prompted the building of the civil rights movement in the first place. We march with the certainty that America can become a nation that really stands for equality and justice for all, and we plan to take it there."

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