Hello, this Danny Pollard. I would like to introduce you to our new venture called Snitchingon.com blog and Snitchingon video channel on Youtube.com. There is not a better time to launch this than on the Martin Luther King Jr. National Holiday celebrating the birthday to the civil rights icon and that will be our first topic. This will look at where we are in relation to his legacy and the state of black America in relation to his dream. I have more than a passing interest in Dr. King as I have visited the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, DC and written a book titled What Would Dr. King Think About Today’s Black America. In honor of Dr. King’s National Holiday the book is available for free download on Amazon.com. Find the book by searching on my pen name of D T Pollard or the book title, titled What Would Dr. King Think About Today’s Black America.
The real topic of this piece is the state of Dr. King’s dream over 48 years after he celebrated his last birthday alive on January 15, 1968, before being felled by an assassin’s bullet in April of the same year. Where are we in relation to Dr. King’s dream 48 years after his last birthday alive. You can find streets named after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in cities and towns all across the United States. The disappointing thing is the likelihood that taking a drive down a street named for Dr. King will lead you through an economically depressed area of whatever city you are driving through. What message is really being sent by the economic state of the neighborhoods surrounding most streets surrounding streets named after Dr. King. One message is that Dr. King is being honored with roadways named in his honor. The other message is that a large number of the streets named after Dr. King are in poorer areas of the cities where they are located and we really need to think deeply on that. Some may point out that most of the streets named after Dr. King are located in minority or black neighborhoods, but it should not have to be a one to one correlation that a minority neighborhood would be an impoverished neighborhood, because that is the opposite of the dream.
We no longer have to sit on the back of the bus. We no longer have to attend an inferior school because we can’t go anywhere else. We no longer have to eat in the restaurant kitchen and can eat in the dining room up front with everyone else. We can apply for any job we desire and can acquire the education and training required to become qualified for those positions. The question is why we are in the situation we find ourselves. Did we not do what was required to realize Dr. King’s dream? Another issue that troubles me is that I am tired of dreaming about body bags. Body bags are being hauled away from sidewalks, hauled away from jails and other locations where we had an unfortunate encounter with law enforcement. The names Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and Christian Taylor are some of those we lost that gather widespread attention because of encounters with law enforcement that turned deadly. There are countless others that died at the hands of people that look like us that did not receive widespread attention. We have to take into account what others are doing to us and what we are doing to ourselves. I highly doubt that Dr. King envisioned us in this situation 48 years after his last birthday as a living being on this earth. We have increasing deadly encounters with law enforcement and with each other that lead to the final ride from which we will never return.
Going forward, to honor the legacy of Dr. King and his birthday we need to examine what we need to do to rekindle the dream particularly at a time when the final term of the first black President of the United States is ending. This indicates we have a highly schizophrenic situation when we have one of us with his hands on the ultimate reins of power and at the same time we have to march in the streets reminding everyone that black lives matter. There is a huge void in the middle that we need to fill and figure out what we need to do to take action to fill that void so we don’t keep dreaming of body bags taking our future potential to the graveyard. When Dr. King said I have a dream I don’t think he meant that 48 years later that dream would be a nightmare.
Thank you and have a good Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National Holiday.