What are they saying to the growing inequalities of the 21st century?
“I want Dr. King to know that I didn’t come to Selma to make his job difficult. I really did come thinking I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King.”
– Malcolm X
Who is today’s Malcolm X?
Who comes close?
Who is our MLK?
Is this tension too binary for the 21st century?
Respect has not improved much since the 1960s, but things have calmed down, in a Brave New World kind of way.
Are we in a cycle of social tension ramping up to the kind of confrontation we haven’t seen in half a century?
I have a 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.
– Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream, 1963
What has been most disappointing since I first heard this speech decades ago, is how often I see people in leadership positions, failing miserably when their character is what they ought to be conveying into public service.
What thrills me the most since I first heard this speech is the scores of young people approaching adulthood who know how to walk the talk.
De-Spinning the Political and Re-Spinning it for Social, Economic and Political Justice