Today August 28, 2013 is the 50 anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I have a Dear Speech”. Nobody can deny the concrete progress of African Americans and other people of color, but the terrible legacy of over three hundred years of slavery, nearly one hundred years of separate but equal treatment of African Americans, and nearly sixty years of some progress laced with subtle racism and continued inequities regarding education, access to credit, and the criminal justice system epitomizes the remaining work to do in the fulfillment of Dr. King’s 1963 “I have a dream speech.” A huge progress was made in so many aspects of American life, but the dream will remain unfilled as long as African American Americans and other people of color do not enjoy equal access to funds, bank loans, credit, home ownership, educations, and equal justice.
The American dream today is not only for African American only; it is for all the people of color and immigrants of all colors, ethnicity, and creed. The dream remains as unfilled as long as black motorists while (Driving While Black) is something in a wide range of jurisdictions throughout the United States. The dream will remain unfilled as long as public the inequities I public education continues.
The dream remains to be unfilled as long as Fane Mae, Freddie Mac, Wells Fargo, First Union, and multiple banks and mortgage companies and corporations keep on discrimination about African American Americans, and either denying them to have access to a respectful and affordable mortgage that commensurate with their income, putting them in a subprime mortgage despite their comparative qualification for a prime mortgage. These unnecessary impediments have caused a home ownership inequity, a disproportionate number of people of color to unfair foreclosures.
As an immigrant person of color Dr. King’s dream was also our dream, and it was the dream of all immigrants. Dr. King’ dream was not exclusive for African Americans, Like Mahatma Gandhi dream; it is a universal phenomenon of human and civil rights. Yesterday, the dream was to desegregate lunch counters, public schools, colleges, universities, equal employment opportunities, restaurants, and other things. Today’s fight for equity needs to focus on equal opportunity for employment, equal access to credit, high education, and equitable and fair criminal justice system. Yesterdays, the vanguards of the status quo were the local Sharif, police, mayor, or the governor of the highly racially segregated states in the old confederacy.
Yesterday, the pioneers of blatant segregation were Governor George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, Bull, Bull Connor, Richard B. Russell, U.S. senator from Georgia, Lester Maddox of Georgia, John H. Overton, U.S. senator from Louisiana, and many others. Today, the new enforcer of subtle racism, segregation and inequities in employment, education, equal access to credit, and equity in home ownership are bank CEOs, the leaders of some mortgage companies, some local governments and college presidents, boards, or admissions leaders. Much progress has indeed been made.
As a participant in the civil rights movement, I’m proud of that progress. But as long as there is necessity for such a legal category as hate crime, the “Dream” remains unfulfilled. As long as DWB (“Driving While Black”) in the presence of police remains a perilous activity for many African Americans throughout our nation, the Dream remains unfulfilled and diluted. As long as unemployment among African Americans keeps repeating the historic ratio of double the rate of unemployment among white people, the Dream remains unfinished and unfulfilled.... >>CONTINUES<<
By Suleiman Egeh
March on Washington: Banks, business and local government are new enforcers of racism
https://theblacklist.net/
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