Editorial: We all must work to complete Dr. King's dream
"I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
- Dr. Martin Luther King, "I Have a Dream" speech, 1963
Fifty years - 50 years - after the assassination in Memphis of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., his dream, while much closer to reality, is still to be fully formed.
Certainly, the nation when he was killed in 1968 is not the nation we live in today. Positive change has happened and has been realized - the election of Barack Obama as president is proof of that, whether you agreed or disagreed with his policies.
But much more needs to be done to fully realize the dream King spoke of on that summer day in Washington, D.C. And it's up to all of us to work toward achieving equality for all and recognizing when we fall short.
"He believed that all people are equal. We are all equal as one because we are all human," said Regina Brent, an Aurora resident and president of Unity Partnership, which works to improve police-community relations, an issue in 1968 and one that is equally resonant of the times in 2018. "If we work to treat everyone equally and do that on a local level, then globally we will know, from the White House down to the schoolyards, we are raising a healthy nation of people."
The Rev. Clyde Brooks, chairman of the Arlington Heights-based Illinois Commission on Diversity and Human Relations, has spent a lifetime working to spread the message of King, with whom Brooks worked. Looking inward is one way to honor the man whose life was cut down at the young age of 39, Brooks said.
"I think we can best remember him by looking at ourselves," Brooks said. "I think we've come a long way, but what needs to change are all the good people who hear evil, see evil and elect to do nothing."
The best way to understand how someone who is different from you thinks is to actually have a conversation with that person and really listen to their story. Fifty years ago in the suburbs, that would have been more difficult as the minority population was so small and diversity was perhaps a buzzword without a reality.
Today, the suburbs truly are a melting pot. Reaching out to your neighbors and truly working to understand their point of view, whether it be a political issue or a cultural one, is how to bridge any gaps.
"He said, 'We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools,'" North Chicago Mayor Leon Rockingham said of King. "Unity is created when determined people join together and do work that is bigger than themselves."