Remembering Dr. King, 50 Years Later

Fifty years ago today the life of revered civil rights champion, Martin Luther King, Jr., was cut short. At the age of only 39, he had done more to advance the cause of equality for African Americans than anyone before, and, arguably, anyone since. Thanks to his activism and leadership (and the participation and support of Americans of all races) bus segregation was outlawed, and major legislation was enacted banning discrimination on the basis of “race, color, religion, or national origin” and protecting the right to vote. These are just a few of the changes that King helped usher in.

Yet, on the eve of his assassination, in his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, King speaks of having seen the promised land from that mountaintop. Chillingly, he recognizes that he may not get there, but affirms, “I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”

Today gives us an opportunity to reflect on the steps we have taken, and those we have yet to take, to bring us to that promised land. The Equality of Opportunity Project recently completed a study analyzing data on 20 million children and their parents. It showed an enormous gap in black-white upward mobility. “Black and white men have very different outcomes even if they grow up in two-parent families with comparable incomes, education and wealth; live on the same city block; and attend the same school.” Black boys born to parents with incomes in the top 20% were as likely to fall to the bottom 20% of incomes as adults as they were to remain in the top. Whereas white boys born in the top quintile were five times as likely to stay there as adults as they were to fall to the bottom. This is just one study, of many, that demonstrates how much work remains to be done. As King said in his final speech, “either we go up together, or we go down together.”

Happily, it has never been easier to engage in this project as a community. Our neighbors are hard at work to bring Dr. King’s vision to life. Below is a list of events in Melrose this month that you might consider attending when thinking about how to honor and advance Dr. King’s legacy.

• April 4 at 7pm Melrose Organizes for Real Equality (MORE) (Unitarian Universalist Church) (meetings are held monthly on a variety of topics)
• April 9 at 7pm Black Lives Matter Allies in Melrose (Unitarian Universalist Church)
• April 23 at 7:30pm MORE Community Read (Melrose Public Library)
• April 28 at 9:30am Anti-Racism Organizing in the Suburbs (First United Methodist Church)

As part of the 50th Anniversary Commemoration sponsored by the National Civil Rights Museum, the First Congregational Church and Highlands Congregational Church will ring their bells at 6:05 p.m. to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated 50 years ago today.

- Members and Supporters of the Melrose Human Rights Commission, Adam LaFrance, Ellyn Ruthstrom, Nita Kumaraswami Klunder