“We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal”
“I HAVE A DREAM 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,” civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in his speech to some 250,000 activists from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on August 28, 1963.
As he called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States, Dr. King said, “I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.”
And his iconic line that is still quoted 57 years later: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Our commemoration of this day, and the message he gave to civil rights activists then, resonate with us all, in light of what has been happening over and over again in the United States.
Unfortunately, for nearly four years, the 45th President of the United States Donald J. Trump, has been leading this great nation in retrogression, away from the collective aspiration of our people to fulfill the promise of America as laid out by our Founding Fathers.
Because of Trump, racism and white supremacists have been emboldened. He stokes racial and cultural divide among different people and races in America, inflamed prejudices against people of color, provoked even more mistrust, hate, and contempt against those who are not white.
This retrogression has incited more violence against people of color, including us, Filipinos in America. Black Americans have been targeted the most throughout history.
Sunday, August 23 marked another sad day in Trump’s America, just three months after a white Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, an unarmed Black man during an arrest, by kneeling on his neck for almost eight minutes as Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down, repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported:
“The Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back after Blake walked away from officers and was attempting to enter a small SUV with his three children in the backseat. Cellphone video of the shooting exploded across social media and ignited a firestorm of sometimes violent, destructive protests in Kenosha in the days since.
Blake lies in Froedtert Hospital, paralyzed. Sheskey is on administrative leave as state and federal agents investigate.”
Former President Barack Obama shared on social media, “To see such brutality happen again—this time, a police officer shooting Jacob Blake in the back as his young children looked on—is a reminder of how deeply ingrained unequal justice is, and how long change will take.”
“Whether Atlanta, Louisville, Minneapolis, or Kenosha, each act of brutality, each death, should sear our conscience as individuals and as a country. What we can do is to continue channeling our anguish into organized action—to demand reforms to police practices; to elect new prosecutors and local leaders, who determine much of the tone and tactics of public safety and law enforcement; to keep giving strength to those who’ve long felt like they were marching alone, and courage to those who are newly doing the hard work of changing their own hearts.”
The day after the shooting, Presidential candidate Joe Biden said, “And this morning, the nation wakes up yet again with grief and outrage that yet another Black American is a victim of excessive force. This calls for an immediate, full and transparent investigation and the officers must be held accountable.”
“These shots pierce the soul of our nation”, the Former Vice President said. “Equal justice has not been real for Black Americans and so many others. We are at an inflection point.
We must dismantle systemic racism. It is the urgent task before us. We must fight to honor the ideals laid in the original American promise, which we are yet to attain: That all men and women are created equal, but more importantly that they must be treated equally.”
Daunting and unsettling Trump’s America may have been, let us not lose hope that our generation can still do something toward fulfilling such promise of America. Let us take courage from the words of Dr. King, who said, “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 every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, “My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims’ pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that; let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
* * *
Gel Santos Relos has been in news, talk, public service and educational broadcasting since 1989 with ABS-CBN and is now serving the Filipino audience using different platforms, including digital broadcasting, and print, and is working on a new public service program for the community. You may contact her through email at [email protected], or send her a message via Facebook at Facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos.
