King 50 years on

Today tens of thousands of Americans gather on the National Mall to kick off the 50th anniversary celebrations of one of the most transformative events in America's history: The March on Washington.

The actual anniversary is next Wednesday, and at the original march there was a long line of speakers. But a half century later, the only words remembered are the ones uttered by a Baptist preacher named Martin Luther King Jr.

King knew firsthand how bad things were for his fellow African-Americans in those days. But what lifts his words is more than his cadence: It is his confidence that America had within herself to do better, and to bring us to the day when his four children would "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

AP

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the march.

So King challenged America, and he challenged America directly. But he challenged America on her own terms, calling our founding documents a "promissory note" on which the nation had still to deliver. This was not a man willing to settle. As The Post noted in these columns at the time, the March on Washington had "assumed the dimensions of a contemporary crusade" and sent "a living message to Congress."

There's no denying the progress that has been made since 1963 — beginning with the fact that a black man is now president of the United States, something King himself likely never expected to see. As President Obama said this week: "Obviously we've made enormous strides. I'm a testament to it."

King would be pleased, but we doubt he'd be content to leave it at that. As he told those marchers: "We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and the Negro in New York has nothing for which to vote." In other words, civil rights was not exclusively a Southern issue.

Today, blacks are not dispatched to separate water fountains or segregated lunch counters. But as the president says, we still have a ways to go. When we look at the high unemployment rates for African-Americans in our city, for example, or the way our public schools are failing our African-American children, we know the civil-rights challenges are real and continuing.

Fifty years after King's dream, we should also have learned that none of these challenges are beyond the ability of an America serious about resolving them.

Have an opinion on this Post editorial? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

King 50 years on

Dengan url

http://bahayaprostat.blogspot.com/2013/08/king-50-years-on.html

Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya

King 50 years on

namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link

King 50 years on

sebagai sumbernya