Today America observes Martin Luther King Day. King put children at the forefront of his fight against segregation, poverty and war. We at Bright would like to take a moment to remember the man and look at where we are now.
America begins this week with one president and ends it with another. President Barack Obama leaves office at noon on Friday. President-elect Donald Trump assumes office following his swearing-in the same day. The nation endured a contentious and sometimes ugly campaign and a complicated, difficult election, and now it feels like we are holding our breath, poised on the brink of something.
If only Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. could step up to a podium and tell us in his powerful voice who we are as a country and what we must do. Every year without King is a lesser year, but on this celebration of his birthday his absence seems especially profound.
The pastor and civil rights crusader worked 20 hours a day, according to one magazine, and gave 450 speeches a year. He crisscrossed the country to tell America that the roots of racism run deep in this country but segregation and racial injustice must end. That an America filled with people living in poverty is not acceptable when it is the richest nation in the world. That the question is not whether America has the means to get rid of poverty but whether it has the will. That war sends black sons and husbands and fathers to foreign lands to guarantee liberties for others that they can’t find at home. That nonviolent resistance and demonstration is the only path to take.
Never far from his thoughts were children.
He told an interviewer in 1965: “I never will forget a moment in Birmingham when a white policeman accosted a little Negro girl, seven or eight years old, who was walking in a demonstration with her mother. ‘What do you want?’ the policeman asked her gruffly, and the little girl looked him straight in the eye and answered, “Fee-dom.” She couldn’t even pronounce it, but she knew. It was beautiful! Many times when I have been in sorely trying situations, the memory of that little one has come into my mind, and has buoyed me.”
In a magazine article on nonviolence he wrote: “a demonstration against the evil of de facto school segregation is based on the awareness that a child’s mind is crippled daily by inadequate educational opportunity.”
In a swing through New Jersey to speak out against poverty and the Vietnam war eight days before he was assassinated, King told high school students to maintain “a sense of somebodyness.”
We know what he said in his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
But what would King say now?
We have not yet arrived at equal education for all. Schools are desegregated, at least by law, but a zip code too often determines who attends the best places. The U.S. Government Accountability Office found last year that the number of schools segregated by race and class has, in fact, grown since 2000. In some states, black students are disproportionately disciplined. Black and Hispanic students are not sent to gifted education programs at the same rates as their white peers. Undocumented students are terrified they will be deported and may stay out of school to avoid the authorities — that is, if they are allowed to enroll in school at all. The U.S. Supreme Court is deciding what level of education under federal law schools owe students with disabilities. Should the bar be just above the absolute minimum, as it is now, or should these students receive a more “meaningful” benefit? And that’s just a quick tour of educational disparity in 2017.
The question is, how will the country right these wrongs? Five decades after King it’s still a burning issue requiring a multi-pronged response.
Last week, Bright published an article on the Innocent Classroom, a new approach to teacher training that tries to root out stereotypes so children are free to learn without the burden of dealing with preconceived notions about who they are. It appears to be making a difference. Students need this kind of fresh thinking, but they also need court cases, parent advocacy groups, research, dedicated teachers, unified communities and after-school programs. They need adults to determinedly chip away at educational injustice so that all kids can go to school with a sense of freedom and somebodyness.
It’s been a long road, one that still stretches out ahead, but on this day and the days to come Americans can draw on King’s vision and his actions to light the way forward and strengthen their resolve.
