Friday April 4th is the 40th anniversary of the death of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. A recognized American Icon. In the 40 years since his passing, we the direct beneficiaries of his legacy (meaning all Americans), have made much progress, and lost much ground...in achieving that dream which he so beautiful articulated on that hot summer day in 1963.

Stop and think...it's been less then a generation and now we have a African American, who all the world says, is "qualified" to be the leader of the most powerful country on the planet earth! What an accomplishment. In Rev. King's day, a Black man wasn't considered qualified to be a fireman, more or less a President. To put it simply, we were lucky to be workers, forget about leaders. Ohhh...how times have changed!!

But as this election season has shown, we have so much further to go. To paraphrase Rev. King; a nation that continues to spend more on its military then the betterment of its society, is approaching spiritual death! (see Where Do We Go from Here http://www.mlkonline.net/quotes.html). Today, we have publicly castrated a man of God, who's 35 years of good works, have been condensed down to a 30 second sound bite for essentially saying the same thing as Rev. King...God Damn America!

If in 2008, Rev. King's 1967 sermon at New York's Riverside Church was on YouTube, we would be calling him a Racist instead of Peacemaker. How many times would Fox News replay his statement calling America, "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today". Oops I forgot, they did call him a race baiter, communist, and much more within the pages of the New York Times, after he spoke out against the war...I guess times really haven't changed.

So where am I going with this...as my Jewish brethren say, we must "Never Forget". On this coming Friday, do not let your children be fed His-Story by those who want to turn the legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King into a caricature of "The Good Negro" for public consumption. Sit your children down and tell them the entirety of Rev. King's life, and not just a 30 second..."I Have A Dream" sound-bite.

This generation is the culmination of the hopes and dreams of 300 years of Black struggles. They have never known the institutional segregation and oppression that we Boomer's did. Most have never been called the N-word in anger. To them the issues of discrimination and injustice are rooted in slavery, not in the pains and sacrifices of their own mothers and fathers. When they hear the stories of the 60's they think Ancient history...not Resent history!!

It's been less then 40 years since Jim Crow prevented you and I, from living where we wanted, going to school where we wanted, working were we wanted, but this generation only knows media sound bites and history book test answers. They have a whole different perspective on American history and like in Pop culture, when they hear the N or B word, they think...Not Them!

As Barak Obama articulated so well in his speech "A More Perfect Union", race in America is seen differently through generational prisms. "This union may never be perfect, but...what gives me the most hope is the next generation" (see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23690567). Rev. King's youngest daughter, Evangelist Dr. Bernice A. King (speaking with the fervor and power of her father about the Jena 6 phenomena), went so far as to call them the Joshua generation. A generation that sees giants in the land and still say...Yes We Can!

When we look into our children's eyes, we understand in the twinkling of an instant what has carried our people through slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the turbulent 60's, that the faith of a child can move mountains. Over the course of this country's development, we have heard plenty words, and seen many broken promises, yet in our hearts...we too still believe. 

As our fathers and their fathers before them, we will not quash the embers of faith and hope within our children eyes. Our parents thought we were crazy to stand against the fire hoses and police dogs of the 60's. And I'm sure Black mothers wondered why their sons were going to fight for freedom in Europe when they were not free here. But they looked into their children's eyes, and saw the same spark of faith...that we see today.

So this Friday, as we are bombarded with media images of Rev. Martin Luther King's contributions to the greatness of America, let's not forget to take the time to teach our children about how far we've come, and how far we have yet to go. Let us fan the embers of our children's faith, with truth and honor...not myths and sound bites.

A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.

I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World, Special 75th Anniversary Edition (Martin Luther King, Jr., born January 15, 1929)