We pay tribute to Dr. King’s dream, but he was not an idle dreamer. His was a dream of transformation. He was a man who used demonstration, negotiation, confrontation and reconciliation to achieve change. The 1963 March on Washington took place in a capital still stained by legal segregation. Fannie Lou Hamer, Jim Farmer, head of CORE, and many others could not get to the march because they were in jail. I had just been released from jail, arrested for trying to use a public library. Across the South, marchers who gathered could not use public accommodations. We were still locked out of restaurants, restrooms and hotels.
Comments