I Have a Dream

I was entering the third grade when Martin Luther King delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech to hundreds of thousands gathered under the Lincoln Memorial. Today I watched a black and white video clip and listened to Dr. King's historic words with my third grade son.

Since that day in 1963, change has come to America. My son cannot conceive of segregation, attending school with African American, Hispanic, Asian, and Caucasian children in roughly equal numbers, which is so unlike the de-facto segregation that colored my early world view. Dr. King's voice boomed out of our computer, echoing across the decades, daring to envision a day when Negroes would find justice in this great land, and when our children could hope to be judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

My son comprehended Dr. King's words, but for him they held little of the power and drama that they still hold for me. My skin prickled and the fine hair on my neck stood up. In my lifetime, it was first inconceivable and then achievable for an African American to be elected president. My son looked away from the image of Dr. King on our computer and toward me, with his head tilted to one side, a question on his face. To him, a time when a black man could not be president is in some distant historical past, along with slavery, women's suffrage, and the ice age.

Tomorrow will be another day; a day to work for justice, a day to reduce my carbon-footprint in an effort to save our planet, a day to walk with the dogs along the winding river. I know there is a very long way to go. Today I am grateful for how far we have come.