A Symbol, a Problem, and a Hope

Like most Americans on this day every year, I find myself reflecting on the life and legacy of Dr. King. But of course, this is no ordinary year and I feel lucky to be in no ordinary position. As I’m writing this, I am on a bus to Washington, D.C. so that, tomorrow, I may watch the inauguration of the first African-American President of the United States. Watching him visit the Lincoln Memorial the other night, the site of King’s now-canonical “I Have a Dream Speech” forty-five years ago, I couldn’t help but have the feeling many do today: King’s dream has finally been realized.

The coming together in that moment of the image of Lincoln, whom Obama has consciously and publicly invoking for months now, the memory of King’s rousing oratory, and the sight of the Obamas taking it all in, was truly symbolic. Lincoln and King are, at least today, two of the most towering figures in the American Pantheon and so will, I hope, Barack Obama be. The upward motion, the realization of the hotly contested American dream that moment seems to me to represent is tangible on this bus today and in the hearts of millions of Americans making their way to Washington along with me to share in the moment. I fully expect tomorrow to be, you might say, one of the most “hopeful” days in American history.

But, somewhere lurking underneath all this high-minded and aspirational symbolism, a more complicated truth seems to lie. Frank Rich pointed to it yesterday is his brilliant piece for the times, “White Like Me.” Even in the midst of all this hope and change, the truth is that little has really and truly changed for a great number of Americans, regardless of race or creed. Barack Obama’s inauguration is a symbolic moment in American history, and an important one, but we would do well not to let symbolism stand for substance. It’s one of the greatest dangers of being inducted into that American pantheon.

I mean, look at Martin Luther King, Jr. I’m willing to bet that most Americans today, if they are particularly interested in King’s story and message, will take some time, perhaps listen to the “I Have a Dream” speech, think about its beautiful message, and perhaps tune in to follow more inauguration festivities. All of which is fine, except the King that we see in 1963, the one I learned about in grade school and even entered college thinking I knew, has become in his symbolic way a veneer over the more complicated story of the struggle to achieve the dream of all men not only created equal, but also treated that way.

The truth is, the King who delivered that momentous speech in 1963 was pretty much absent by the time King was assassinated in 1968 while fighting for fair treatment for waste workers in Memphis, TN. The King that died that day was concerned with a broader and more intense critique of American society and Capitalism.

He found recent legislative advances, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, to be small solace for the deeper problems facing, not only the black community, but people everywhere of every color oppressed by the wheels of power. He was furious with his government for its continued involvement in the Vietnam War, was reaching out to other oppressed peoples on a regular basis and, as the decline in his national popularity belied, fast losing the attention of a White America that was fine with making blacks equal on paper so long as they didn’t have to do it in real life or confront other basic issues of inequality rooted in their system of government and commerce.

Americans today still don’t like to think about this later King. He makes people uncomfortable, talking not just about the brutal rule of racism in the South, but also about other issues of basic social justice that might really get people of a lot of colors in a lot of places pretty riled up. And so he begins to disappear behind the King of 1963, and the calls to justice he was making later in his life fade away. We’re brought up listening to that speech and being told, “Look, the government listened, African-Americans aren’t discriminated against anymore,” and moved on to a brief and glancing look at the Vietnam War. The power of the symbol impoverishes our understanding of the complicated and, sometimes troubling, King.

The result, today, is that we still live in an unequal society. In fact, the inequality between different classes of Americans has only gotten drastically wider in the last eight years. What’s more, the instruments of oppression are subtler and more tenacious because more people have an investment in keeping them in place. Issues like the freedom to unionize, basic healthcare, and a functioning education system are the issues the later King was concerned about. These were the fundamental kinds of changes that were going to do what the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, incredibly important and symbolic pieces of legislation could never do: provide the on the ground support people needed to achieve the dream. Without it, you can call people equal all you want, but without the kind of society that allows them to really exercise their talents you will never see the kind of change your average single mother in inner city Baltimore can partake in, no matter much she might believe in it.

None of this is to say that we haven’t made progress since 1963. That Barack Obama will be President tomorrow is a real, tangible, and incredibly important event. But we have more work left to do. We have to pass an aggressive agenda that gives people the tools to make their lives better, not that tells them they’re equal to everyone else and leaves to languish with low pay, no healthcare, and no way to realize the dreams we all have a right to.

We have to think about King’s message after 1963. We have to be uncomfortable, to look outside our own comfort to the despair of those trapped behind the symbols and effusive good feelings. If we continue to pretend that, just by electing Obama, we’ve finally achieved the dream King set forth, we will fail to deliver on the promise of today and tomorrow. King and Obama have given us inspiring visions to fight for. Let’s not let those visions become a panacea that keeps us from making the real changes this nation so desperately needs.