My wife and I recently returned from a trip to Atlanta, GA. One of the first things we did was tour the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial and Museum. We had parked several blocks away and walked through a run down district of crumbling buildings, urine soaked sidewalks, liquor stores and homeless pan handlers to get to the MLK Center adjacent to the historical Ebenezer Baptist Church. The sense of despair and brokenness was heavy and made me acutely aware of the lingering effects of systematized injustice and inequality.
Anyone who has ever visited the MLK memorial and taken the time to read the captions and displays that tell Dr. King's story and the history of the Civil Rights Movement can't help but be deeply moved by the collective journey of African-Americans in the United States--especially in the "Jim Crow" South.
Inconspicuously displayed among the larger exhibits featuring the March to Selma and Dr. King's now immortalized "Letter From the Birmingham Jail" and "I Have a Dream" speech, are books that pictorially tell the story of the plight of the American Negro in a society dominated by bigotry and racial hatred. These books are easily overlooked as one's attention is drawn to screens showing film footage and recordings of key events in Dr. King's life as he led the non-violent outcry against segregation.
As my wife flipped through one of these books, she found a picture which she called me over to view. Although I have been generally aware that there were atrocities, lynchings and murders that occurred along the way in the struggle, I was not prepared for this horrifying image and all that it symbolized. It was a photograph of the body of a black man who had been lynched on a telephone pole with a sign pinned to his clothing that declared, "This N----r voted." The message was clear to all. If another black person tries to vote around here, we will do the same to them. This terrorist incident took place in the USA just a few short decades ago.
Yesterday we learned that the Democratic Party will nominate an African-American, Barack Obama, to be it's candidate for President of the United States. Whatever one may think of his political views, the historical symbolism of this occasion is astounding. Americans have come such a long way toward undoing the evils of racial prejudice. But, we have also learned from exit polls conducted during this primary season that notable percentages of voters in various parts of the country have openly admitted that they voted against Obama because he is black. In these voters' minds the content of his character was not a consideration. It is the color of his skin that was the deciding factor for them.
So, yes, we have come such a long way. But we still have such a long way to go...
