MLK to Obama: A dream realized?

updated 12:40 a.m. ET Aug. 23, 2008

The dreamer in him envisioned a day when "Whites Only" signs would no longer hang in restaurant windows. A time when everyone's desire to vote would be respected. A time when blacks and whites would work, pray and live together.

He spoke of an America where people would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

"I have a dream," the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963, "that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed — 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."'

The 45th anniversary of the iconic leader's most memorable speech coincides with the day when another African-American leader, Barack Obama, makes a historic speech of his own — accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States.

Is the convention's timing merely, as Obama's critics might suggest, political choreography at its shiniest, one more seamlessly staged performance by a "rock star" candidate?

Perhaps. And yet, it is also fitting: For if King inspired Americans to confront their bigotry or at least dream of a more perfect union, a candidate with Obama's profile surely seems part of that dream's fulfillment.

Does Obama's candidacy complete the circle, showing that we now live in a colorblind society? Many want to believe that our culture has moved beyond its racial problems, that the election of a biracial man would be a peculiarly American achievement — an affirmation of American ideals.

In some ways, the nation that Obama will address is visibly less divided along racial lines than King's America.

In King's day, racial inequality was legally sanctioned: Separate parks, restrooms, hotels, theaters, schools and drinking fountains were common in many areas; statutes forbade interracial sexual relations; African-Americans were beaten and lynched, sometimes with tacit public approval and even enjoyment.

Video   Differences between candidates and their campaigns Aug. 3: Republican strategist Mike Murphy calls the “celebrity” ad “clumsy and juvenile,” but says that Obama “stumbled a bit” on the issue of race. He points out the difference in the strength of the campaigns versus the strength of the candidates. Meet the Press

The federal interventions of the '60s — the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Federal Fair Housing Act — reset the nation's parameters for "normalcy." Legal decisions, such as the Supreme Court's 1967 ruling knocking down a Virginia statute that barred whites from marrying nonwhites, opened the door to integration a bit more.

But in the four decades since King's speech, questions about the prevalence of racism in American life haven't abated, with blacks and whites deeply divided on how significant a role discrimination plays in keeping blacks from achieving parity with whites.

If the United States has entered a truly "post-racial" era, some wonder, then why do a few racial slurs made by a radio commentator (Don Imus) or over-the-top bits of sermons by a retired pastor (Rev. Jeremiah Wright) set off such alarm bells?

Why do we still hear about real estate agents who steer whites away from integrated neighborhoods, or how qualified black couples are turned down, without explanation, for an apartment rental? Why does the naming of a black CEO of a leading American corporation still raise some eyebrows?

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"Everything has changed, and nothing has changed," on matters of race, says the Rev. Joseph Lowery, 86, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with King and marched alongside his friend all those years ago.

"That's the paradox in which we find ourselves."

For years now, most Americans have told pollsters that although they believe racism to be a lingering problem, they themselves are not racist.

A year ago, a Pew Research Center survey reported that 82 percent of whites said they had a "mostly favorable" or "very favorable" opinion of blacks; 80 percent of blacks felt the same way about whites.

Similarly, about 94 percent of Americans recently polled by Gallup said they'd vote for a black candidate for president, up from 53 percent in 1967.

This all sounds lovely — but what then to make of other survey findings? For instance, African-Americans also told the Pew Center that they often face discrimination when applying for a job, renting an apartment or buying a house. Whites, by 2-to-1 majorities, said they believed blacks rarely face bias in such situations.

In his speech, King said blacks could not be satisfied "as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities."

Since then, Jim Crow has been outlawed in most public venues, though discrimination dies hard for some: In the largest public accommodation settlement ever, the Denny's restaurant chain in 1993-94 paid $54 million to settle three class-action suits for discriminating against African-American customers. Ten years later, Cracker Barrel restaurants settled a Justice Department lawsuit which said blacks were segregated from white patrons in seating, often made to wait longer for tables and sometimes denied service.

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