MLK Jr.'s assassination: 40 years later, nearer the Promised Land?

The Associated Press

Martin Luther King Jr., on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, near where he was shot and killed.

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MLK Jr.'s assassination: 40 years later, nearer the Promised Land?

Forty years ago today, an assassin's bullet made a martyr of one of the greatest civil rights leaders America has ever known. Martin Luther King Jr. preached social justice and invoked the Founders' promise of equality enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.

The night before his murder, King spoke these words at a church rally in Memphis. "We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

Forty years after his death, King's legacy of fighting for racial and economic justice remains strong. But is America closer to the promised land King saw?

Ben likes: The view from room 306

David Brooks/New York Times

Building the social fabric after the disruption of that period has been the work of the subsequent generations — weaving the invisible web of family, neighborhood and national obligations so that people stay in school, attend to their kids and have an opportunity to rise if they play by the rules.

Progress has been slow. Nearly a third of American high school students don’t graduate (half in the cities). Seventy percent of African-American kids are born out of wedlock. Poverty rates in Memphis have scarcely dropped.

Martin Luther King Jr. at least left behind a model of how to repair the social fabric. He was scholarly, formal, assertive and meticulously self-controlled in public. If Barack Obama’s presidential campaign represents anything, it is the triumph of King’s early-60s style of activism over the angry and reckless late-60s style. King was in crisis when he was gunned down. But his inspiration is outlasting his critics.

Joel likes: Two black Americas

Eugene Robinson/Washington Post

Forty years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, we sometimes talk about race in America as if nothing has changed. The truth is that everything has changed -- mostly for the better -- and that if we're ever going to see King's dream fulfilled, first we have to acknowledge that this is not an America he would have recognized.

There remains a significant income gap between whites and blacks in this country, although it shrinks when educational level is factored in. But the gap in wealth, or net worth, is huge, even when you control for education, age, family size and whatever else you want to throw in. Still, African Americans control an estimated $800 billion in purchasing power. If that were translated into gross domestic product, a sovereign "Black America" would be the 15th- or 16th-richest nation on earth.

The African American poor are a smaller segment than they were 40 years ago, but arguably they are further from full participation in society than they were in King's era. It's not that they have no interest in climbing the ladder, it's that too many rungs are missing.

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Ward Connerly is King's intellectual heir

Submitted on April 4th, 2008 by Chuck_Johnson

And we who join him in his fight against reverse racism hold to the principle that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

It's a tragedy that the Democratic party has so tragically lost touch with the American principles King reiterated.

Chuck Johnson is a student at Claremont McKenna College. Feel free to contact him.

Sounds racist? The black

Submitted on April 4th, 2008 by Anonymous

Sounds racist? The black vote? Why is everything about white/black? It is so sad! I think MLK would be disappointed in how separate we are the black and whites. He was striving for peace, not hatred.