I Had a Really Weird Dream Last Night

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Birthday (observed), and inspired by the Moslem tradition of reading the Koran throughout Ramadan, I read "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and an article about King by James Baldwin yesterday. I also watched some television and was concerned by an ad promoting remembrance of Dr. King's legacy. It ended with the supertitle "Dream." I'm no civil rights expert, but I'm sure Dr. King wouldn't be one to say his message could be boiled down to the word "dream." Maybe "act." Or "perservere." But dreaming is a state of inaction. Everyone knows, dreamers aren't doers, and Dr. King was a doer. He scorned the inaction and silence of the white moderate more than the abuse of the Ku Klux Klan. He believed non-violent direct action was the way to negotiation and change. He may have had a dream, but it should not be his dream that defines who Dr. King was to the civil rights movement and to America. His actions should be that definition.

I invite you to actually read "Letter" or The Autobiography of Malcolm X or Anne Moody's great book Coming of Age in Mississippi so that you can get a less diluted picture of the movement and the real stuggle than the modern media paints today. I'm appalled that I was taught the mythologized story of Rosa Parks as a child. Why couldn't they just tell us the way it was: Parks worked with the NAACP and knew exactly what she was doing when she refused to give up her seat. I find that story much more inspiring, as the story of a politically motivated woman who knew that a boycott was close at hand and that she might just spark it. That's courageous. That's a woman who is working for change, not just accepting the status quo but being too darn tired to stand up.

I remember when I was in college, and Spike Lee's X came out. All sorts of black kids on campus were wearing the ball caps with "X" on them. Alex Haley was a trustee of my university, so our professors were always happy to make us familiar with his work. I read Autobiography when I was a frehman, and it stunned me how many kids in their "X" hats didn't know the first thing about the man except what Spike wanted to show them. Ignorance of our nation's history, especially the history of civil disobedience for the greater good, is nothing to be proud of. In the current political climate, it's dangerous to be so ignorant. Once again, apathy and acceptance of the status quo are our enemies. Who will start talking today?