“Only one principle will give you courage: . . . no evil lasts forever; nor indeed very long.” – Epicurus
THERE MIGHT BE many among us too young to appreciate that 50 years ago yesterday, Washington, in the District of Columbia in the United States, was reportedly on a “war footing”.
There was a march on the Washington Monument led by the late Martin Luther King Jr and thousands of those who were discriminated against on the basis of race. The authorities expected violence and every effort was made to call off the march.
The question of race relations was a major problem in the United States, with frequent outbreaks of violence in the Deep South, mostly as a consequence of police brutality against peaceful demonstrators rallying in defence of civil rights.
Martin Luther King Jr was a Baptist preacher who had gained prominence less than eight years earlier as the driving force behind a successful bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks, who had famously refused to cede her bus seat to a white passenger.
There were rumours of King’s effectiveness as a speaker, but until that day in Washington most white Americans had never been exposed to anything more than sound bites from him. All Americans were in for something of a shock.
In his speech, King made a most eloquent case for an end to segregation and racism, pointing out the profound flaws in America’s image of itself. However, as he began to wind down, his favourite gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson, reportedly shouted: “Tell them about the dream, Martin!”
America’s most celebrated piece of oratory I Have A Dream still lives on, so much so that it is intellectual property. Washington DC saw its moment of pride when thousands marched on the capital eulogizing the services of Martin Luther King. For them, even to this day, King’s words of “jobs not wars” still resonate with many.
King’s speech is today acknowledged as the outstanding oration of the 20th century, not least because it articulated America’s deepest flaws in such poetic cadence. However it took some time before it was fully acknowledged and reached its current stature.
In the years that followed, King was denigrated for his advocacy of economic justice for all, and even more so for designating his country the United States of America as the most violent in the world. He was ultimately assassinated in 1968.
There is little doubt that the presidency of Barack Obama’s is a culmination and a fitting tribute to the sacrifices King and his lieutenants made. Attorney-General Eric Holder eloquently made this point during his speech at last Saturday’s 50th anniversary rally.
Unfortunately, columnist Mahir Ali had this to say: “Although segregation received a legal burial, the Obama presidency appears to have given a new lease of life to racism” as more African-Americans are in prison today than were enslaved in the mid-19th Century; a poetic irony.
After 50 years, it is still easier to build monuments than to make a better world.