In the coming days, two history-making Black men will inhabit our hearts and minds: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President-elect Barack Obama.
In the coming days, two history-making Black men will inhabit our hearts and minds: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President-elect Barack Obama.
How appropriate that the inauguration of the United States ’ first African-American president will come the day after the national holiday honoring the slain civil rights. Pride, will no doubt, flow from Black people from all corners of the globe.
Comparisons between Obama and Dr. King will be inevitable, even though each man’s impact on history, domestic policy and social mores is clearly unique to his own legacy. It is difficult, however, to resist the urge to connect the dots between Dr. King’s dream of an America where people are judged on the content of their character and not by the color of their skin and Obama’s ascent to the presidency.
For older generations of African Americans, Obama’s election has represented a sort of vindication of decades of separation, inequality and second-class citizenship. But as King Day approaches, I wondered what was going through the minds of African American teenagers. They are, after all, the next generation of leadership, so it is important to understand whether they believe that Obama’s election has ushered in what some are calling a “post-racial era.”
Last week, Urban League staffers asked students who participate in our after school financial literacy program – the Youth Investor and Entrepreneur Project – this question: Do you believe that Obama’s election is the fulfillment of Dr. King’s dream?
Here’s how Cedric Hakeem, 15, a sophomore at Urban Prep Charter School , summed up his feelings: “I’m going to have to say ‘Yes.’ Dr. King’s dream was fulfilled. He wanted equal rights. He wanted a Black man to be able to do whatever a white man can do. Dr. King dedicated his life to the struggle of African Americans. His dreams were unthinkable when he lived because he knew that African Americans had been treated unfairly for over 400 hundred years. We were treated as animals, we had no rights, we couldn’t do anything, at one point it was illegal for us to read, but we overcame every obstacle that was put in our faces. Thanks to Dr. King and other civil rights activists, now we are able to live freely or as we please.”
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