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Health & Fitness

Redeem the dream timeline

Some of the ideals described in the Martin Luther King "I have a Dream" speech are revisited in this post.

Crime

1955: The acquittal of two men accused of murdering 14-year old Emmett Till by an all-white, all-male jury ignited the civil rights movement.

2013: The acquittal of neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman, accused of killing 17-year old Trayvon Martin, by an all-white, all-female jury ignites anger and frustration across the nation.

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1963 (excerpt from “I have a dream” speech): 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.

2013: More than a quarter of African-American are poor compared with approximately 10% of whites. There is no cause-and-effect relationship between poverty and crime (the architects of the 2007–08 economic crisis were not poor). However, some have argued that concentrated poverty (think inner cities) could serve as a catalyst for futility and, in turn, lead to crime and violence. This does not justify black-on-black violence, the death of Christopher Lane and carte blanchestop-and-frisk” policies.

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1963 (excerpt from “I have a dream” speech): But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

Voting rights

1870: The Fifteenth Amendment to the US constitution is ratified, barring federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based “race, color or previous condition of servitude.” However, a system of whites-only primaries and intimidation suppressed black participation.

1920: Women won the right to vote after two-thirds of the states had ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

1963 (excerpt from “I have a dream” speech): Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.

1965: The Voting Rights Act prohibits state and local governments from imposing any "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure ... to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.”

2013: The Supreme Court’s invalidation of the core of the Voting Rights Act is followed by remarks from dissenting Justice Ginsburg that she had made a mistake in joining a 2009 foundational opinion for the current court ruling. While the anti-discrimination provision remains intact, civil rights groups are aghast at the removal of a mechanism for special treatment for locales known to have a history of setting unfair barriers at the polls.

Unity

1963 (exerpt from “I have a Dream” speech): 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." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. 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.

1992: According to the United States Commission on Civil Rights’ report, Asian-Americans face widespread discrimination, harassment, unfair treatment in court, scapegoating, racially motivated violence, economic boycotts and hit “glass ceilings” at work.

2003: In the view of the US Human Rights Network, discrimination permeates US society and extends to all communities of color.

2011: The work of Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin, showing the frame of Martin Luther King Jr. emerging from a “Stone of Hope,” is unveiled to mark the 48th anniversary of the “I have a Dream” speech.

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