- Do you think that Martin Luther King’s dream has been fulfilled today? Why or why not? Cite specific parts of the speech to support your answer.

                Sure, doctor King’s dream has come to fruition. There have been laws that have been past, and thankfully discrimination and segregation by race have been outlawed in America.  So the manacles have been legally disposed of, and Michael Brown and Treyvon Martin can walk the streets in peace. That land of freedom can be seen in the right to protest in the streets of Fergeson, a right that was able to be used without guns being pointed at them... Now notice I said discrimination was “legally” disposed of. I said “legal” because although the United States Government has officially outlawed the unequal  treatment of a person due to a pigment difference, the reality is that much hasn’t changed since Jim Crow. Martin Luther King’s magnificent dream was that all could come to “the table of brotherhood.” It is the universal dream of equality. It was the dream where the color of your skin or any other insignifigant difference couldn’t  determine if you are to go hungry. Just as Nietzsche decared God is dead, I tell you that the dream of equality lies face down in the gutter along side his African American brothers. We are still in slavery to this defective system and the dream  “ that my four little children will one dat live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character” is just that, a dream.

                “ One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.” From a study conducted from 2007 to 2011, there were 43 million Americans who lived in poverty. This is equivelent to about 14 percent of the population between those times. To better understand that number, one must understand that poverty is considered to be anyone who makes less than 11,500 for one individual and 23,000 for a family of four.(Morello) That’s equivelent of saying you make and live off of less than 958 dollars and 33 cents a month. Of course, these numbers in and of themselves arent a reoccurence of King’s declaration that African Americas are isolated on an island of poverty, but the next numbers are. Out of that 43 million, 26 percent of those people were Black. Not impressed? How about when you put it next to less than 12 percent of those were whites? (Morello) I am African American, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the fires of justice have not burned hot enough, and that apparently the bank of opportunity is bankrupt.

                Our government, in the days of Civil Rights, made changes in the social system that degrades African Americans and other minorities. Affirmative Action, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voter’s Rights Act, and other pieces of legistlation were actual credable steps that our government had taken to “make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” Since then, Affirmative Action has been stripped and even deemed unconstitutional in some states, the Voter’s Right Act has been molested, and all the promises given by the government have been retracted. When the people stopped marching and the grew tired, the phrase “all men are created equal” was crossed out. Even the man who’s dream I write about was put to death to silence the cry for rights. “Business as usual” has gone on just as planned. Those who were at King’s speech that day did what he suggested and went back. They went back, and they waited for their check. They waited for the check that would give them their rights and humanity back. A few notices came, and a dollar here or there in the way of an act or so, but in the end they took it all back. All that’s heard from the great mountains of our nation are the sighs of starving, unemployed, and forgotten black. That, and the silence of all who watch.

Bibliography

Morello, Carol. "Poverty Rates Higher for Blacks and Hispanics than Whites and Asians." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 20 Feb. 2013. Web. 05 Mar. 2015.