I Have A Dream

Where should we start, at the beginning when we sold people as property, punished them for talking to the wrong people, or killed them for walking on the other side of the street? I know, it’s unbelievable. It’s even crazier to think this happened only 148 years ago.
Whenever I hear the name Martin Luther King Jr. I think of his speech, I Have a Dream. Throughout it, he expresses his many hopes and dreams for the world. I believe that some of them have become a reality, but others, unfortunately, have not. One of my favorite quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. speech is, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
This doesn’t have any meaning, unless we put meaning to it. I believe that this dream has, through the years, become a reality. We say that everyone is created equal, and now we are finally showing it. Back then, blacks had to ride in the back of the bus and now they are free to sit anywhere they would like. Back then, black kids had to go to different schools. A young African American girl named Ruby Bridges, only six years of age, walked into an all white school. Immediately, she was encompassed by a group of white people, spitting on her and calling her names like she was nothing but dirt. Luckily, this racial discrimination doesn’t happen anymore and schools are filled with diverse groups of people. Back then, people of color were not able to drink out of public drinking fountains or allowed to visit some public places. These people who were treated so unfairly, are now treated just like you and me.
I read a story about a black sixteen year old boy who was pulled over by the police. When asked what the problem was, the police officer replied that there was a robbing down the street and he matched the descriptions. The young man, Riley Lockett, felt that he pulled him over because of his color. Would this situation have been different if he weren’t black? This is just one of the frequent stories that stir up these questions in the minds of many people.
I have a lot of questions, that simply cannot be answered.
How did a society that has come so far, begin at a point in time when we considered people as property? Why has it been 219 years before people realized that it is okay to elect a president of color? This ties along with the discussion of gender equality because there still hasn’t been a female president. Some women have come very close, but have yet to succeed. There shouldn’t be a debate on who is what gender, it doesn’t matter. Another question is how did people live day after day after day, knowing what people of color had to face? How did people think it was even remotely right, to lynch someone for no reason? There are some outrageous stories of lynchings in history. People were killed because they were homeless, for being unpopular in the community, and people were even killed for skipping a stone across a lake. The accounts of some people’s life truly blow my mind. Why do people still judge someone by the color of their skin when it matters on the inside, and not the outside? Martin Luther King Jr. supported this by saying, “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.” Has this dream become a reality? In my opinion, this dream has. The people who experienced horrible treatment currently live among us, and are considered ordinary people. Everyone has first impressions, but we are
beginning to realize that people’s personalities can be found within them.
“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” A dream of Martin Luther King Jr. that has become true, to some extent. We are all different, we all know this, but we are all human and we need to act like it. We need to make the choice to come together as one instead of being divided. If we look at the similarities without focusing on the differences, than together we will accomplish a whole lot more.