MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. MARADE, 2017
Marching For Justice
The weather was cold and snowy on Monday, Jan. 16. As a result, the crowds at Denver’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Marade (march and parade) were smaller than in years past. Still, thousands defied the weather to turn out to commemorate what would have been the slain civil rights leader’s 88th birthday. Participants gathered at the Martin Luther King, Jr. statue and I Have A Dream Memorial in City Park, just west of Park Hill, and marched down Colfax Avenue to Civic Center Park across from the state Capitol. Photos by Cara DeGette
A 2017 Letter To Martin Luther King, Jr.
‘May We Become The Nation You Dreamed Of’
By Gilbert H. Caldwell
Dear Dr. King,
We first met in May of 1958 at Boston University School of Theology. You were 29, I was 24. You would have been 88 this Jan. 15 if you had not been assassinated in 1968. I am now 83 … and I am compelled to share the following:
1. The last eight years, we have been blessed to have as our President, Barack Hussein Obama. But developments that have been taking place in the process of electing his successor, which have motivated my writing this letter to you that I hope and pray will be shared with others.
2. The nation and world now know that the election of President Obama did not usher in a post racial/racist era. We missed an opportunity as proponents or opponents of Obama to act in ways that demonstrated that we acknowledged “America’s original sin; racism.” His opposition could have been a “loyal opposition” that disagreed with his policies, but not disagree with the legacy of the anti-black racism that still hovers over the nation; south, north, central and west. The nation has demonstrated that it could accept with enthusiasm two black quarterbacks as they led their respective teams in the quest for a national championship. But, there were some Americans who in attitudes and actions, were reluctant to fully accept a black President of the United States, nor his spouse Michelle and their daughters. Football quarterbacks entertain and excite football fans, but a president represents and leads a nation. This apparently for some Americans, was beyond their capacity to accept.
3. Dr. King, our unresolved racial reality is that there has been and is, an unwillingness to express in word and deed that the nation was wrong in ever tolerating slavery and racial segregation. They both violated the principles of equality, fairness and justice that are writ large in scripture and the constitution. We waste time in efforts to label persons racist. I am fascinated at how persons whether right or left of center, protect others and themselves from the racist label, but are less enthusiastic in condemning systemic racism re; voting rights, affirmative action, education, housing, economic opportunity, the gap between blacks in healthcare, home ownership, and family, economic well being.
We are not where we ought be on matters of racial justice, because we have discovered we can enact laws that allow us “to change without changing” the deep seated attitudes that once justified slavery and segregation. Yet, Dr. King, I dare to dream that Republicans, Democrats, Independents and all of us can and will join hands and hearts to make America what it is not yet, but can become.
On Friday, Jan. 13 [my wife] Grace and I and our son Dale visited the Bear Tavern Elementary School in New Jersey to talk about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. The faces of those children, their teachers and principal are in my mind’s eye as I write this. It is because of them, and those like them that I write this letter. They deserve a better nation than the one that we are now. May we, despite the dark clouds above us, begin to become the nation you dreamed of and believed in as you lived and died for and in the cause of Freedom and Justice.
The Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell is a retired United Methodist minister who lives in Asbury Park, N.J. He was an active participant in King’s 1963 March on Washington, the 1964 Freedom Summer, 1965’s Selma to Montgomery March, 1968’s Poor People’s Campaign and the march in Boston protesting school segregation.