Don Roach: MLK’s legacy is More than Just a Holiday

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Don Roach, GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™

 

This week we celebrated the life and accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King. To me, his greatest accomplishment – and I am biased – is that I never had a fearful thought about my life while growing up. I didn’t have to attend a segregated school, drink from a ‘colored only’ water fountain, or use a ‘colored only’ bathroom. It’s no small thing to grow up not having to overcome what my ancestors faced on a daily basis. I’m glad that I have to imagine what life would be like if forced to cast my gaze downward if I saw a white person coming down the street. I’m very glad that my career choices were never limited by my melanin count. Yet, just twenty years before I was born my father faced just such opposition.

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Who wants to be a millionaire?

The story as he tells it occurred during a kindergarten class discussion circa 1958 in West Virginia. The topic was “what do you want to be when you grow up?” I haven’t come across another five year old who had the same dream my dad expressed that day, but he told his teacher that he wanted to be a millionaire. At five, I don’t think I had much of a concept of money other than it cost .25 cents to buy a pack of baseball cards. Apparently my dad had decided that being a millionaire was exactly what he wanted to do. Unfortunately, like so many other young black children of that era his teacher’s response was not supportive. She replied, “Maybe you should consider being a janitor or a chef.” He wanted to be a millionaire, she saw his skin and offered him the goal of a janitor or chef. Mind you there’s nothing wrong with those professions, no, but for centuries many black children were told they couldn’t do or be the very things they so desired to become if for no other reason than their skin color.

That the story stuck with my dad throughout his life that he talked to me about it gives me pause in thinking about what minorities faced in this country prior to the victories gained by Dr. King and others. The times he faced were hard and hard is a terrible understatement given that he was assassinated in 1968. He put his life on the line every day just by saying all men are equal and should be treated as such. I could write that statement on a blog a thousand times today and there would be nary a peep. My children could be asked the same question posed to my dad 50+ years ago, give the same answer, and would most definitely not be redirected towards a career ‘more appropriate’ for their race.

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Just a holiday?

I’m a man, not a woman. I know that’s stating the obvious but I say that just to say it’s difficult to place myself in someone else’s shoes. I have no idea what it means to go through that time of the month except from a bystander position, I don’t know how it feels to carry another human being inside of you while you’re hormones go haywire, and I just don’t get what all the fuss about Brad Pitt is?

In the same light, I have no clue how white folks view the King holiday. I’m not sure I’ve had an adult conversation post college with a white person about Martin Luther King except in a completely different context than I’ve been discussing. I’ll get back to that issue, but what is King’s legacy for white people? Even as I’m asking the question, I hate how it sounds but I’m not sure how to put it any other way. I suppose I could try politically correcti-ify it in some way shape or form but it’s a question that I think is important to ask in 2012. Is Martin Luther King Day just another holiday where you have to figure out where to send the kids because day care is closed? For me, it will never be that but King’s impact on my life is tangible, it’s real. How real is it to white people?

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Co-opting a legacy?

The adult conversations I have had regarding King with non-minorities has always centered around economic justice. Consider that King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee where he prepared to lead a march in support of striking sanitation workers. My 21st century discourse on King usually focuses on how upset he would be with economic inequalities of today. He’d say that we have not reached the promise land of monetary equality but still live in the Egyptian pits of capital slavery. I do not believe King would be joyous over the fact that economic leaders on Wall Street got their bonuses while laying off millions of workers. I’m sure he’d be highly critical of the materialism that plagues our generation far beyond his of the 50s and 60s. I don’t discount these things, but what bothers me is the lack of discussion about race and instead a focus on economics.

It’s as if today’s leaders, generally liberal in nature, are looking for a universal champion who supports their cause. Who better than Martin Luther King Jr, the most celebrated African American man in history. Who better than a man who believed that racial justice and social justice weren’t polar opposites?

At times though, it makes me cringe. Perhaps I’m being unreasonable, but I fear the diluting of King’s racial victories in favor of focusing on his economic/social commentary that relate more to our present generation. King’s legacy for me will always primarily be the freedom he brought to me and those who call themselves black. Maybe it’s a little selfish, maybe, but the next time I’m at a mixed race meeting discussing Dr. King’s legacy I’d like the focus to be on race and not the economy.

His legacy is large enough to encompass all that was Dr. King, but I don’t want another child to ever have to face what my father and his generation faced. And if we only discuss ways in which King’s message affects our economy, I fear we’ll lose the depth of his purpose and cause.

And for me, his legacy means too much for that.

Don Roach is a married father of three. A member of the RI Young Republicans, he can be reached at [email protected].

 

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