In the 1970's, the inner-city Catholic elementary school I attended on Chicago's South Side was ahead of its time in declaring Martin Luther King's birthday a holiday. One year my sister, a friend of hers and I threw him a party. We played pin the tail on the donkey, made a cake and sang "Happy Birthday Dr. King." We had some sense that big changes were on the way, and that he gave his life to make them happen. Decades later we're still waiting.

Of course there is much to celebrate: The passage of the Civil Rights Act. The end of apartheid in South Africa. Barak, Oprah, Condi, Colin. But the victories are minor compared with the challenges and injustices that remain, and with our failure to address them.

Three months from now will mark the 40th anniversary of King's assassination. What better time to reflect on our collective complacency in enabling segregation and discrimination as they exist today. Here, interspersed with Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech (which appears in italics), are a few realities to ponder.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

A 2000 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development study found that whites were favored over similarly qualified African Americans 22% of the time in rental housing and 17% of the time in housing sales.
SOURCE: M. Turner et al., Discrimination in Metropolitan Housing Markets: National Results from Phase 1 of HDS 2000 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) http://www.opportunityagenda.org/site/c.mwL5KkN0LvH/b.1629379/k.996D/African_Americans.html


In a sense we’ve come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Nearly 1 in 4 African Americans is uninsured, compared to 16% of the U.S. population. Rates of employer-based health coverage are just over 50% for employed African Americans, compared to over 70% for employed non-Hispanic whites.
SOURCE: Surgeon General’s Report, U.S. Deparment of Health and Human Services http://mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/cre/fact1.asp

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

A Boston Federal Reserve Bank study in 1990 found that the conventional mortgage loan rejection rate for African-American applicants in the Boston area was 82 percent higher than for white applicants with the same qualifications. More recent studies using a range of controls have yielded similar findings.
SOURCE: A.H. Munnell, L.E. Browne, J. McEneaney, and G.M.B. Tootell, “Mortgage Lending in Boston: Interpreting HMDA Data,” American Economic Review 86, no. 1 (1996): 25-53; A.L. Ross and J. Yinger, The Color of Credit: Mortgage Discrimination, Research Methodology, and Fair-Lending Enforcement (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002).

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

“In the 1960s, African Americans lacked channels through which to make effective claims on the state. They were underrepresented in Congress, statelegislatures, city councils, police forces, and in influential positions in private corporations. Other than through collective action, whether sit-ins or violence, they had few ways to force their grievances onto public attention or persuade authorities to respond.

This changed as the new demography of urban politics, the victories of the civil rights movement, and affirmative action combined to open new channels of access. As selective incorporation bifurcated the African American social structure, unprecedented numbers of African Americans became public officials, bureaucrats, and administrators of social service agencies.

People who once might have led protests now held positions from which they could argue that civil violence was both unnecessary and counterproductive. Others remained in America’s inner cities, struggling to get by, disenfranchised, wary of the state, disillusioned with politicians, lacking leadership or a vision strong enough to mobilize them once again to make claims on the state.”
SOURCE: http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=859

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

“Even at the height of the administration of Chicago’s first black mayor (Harold Washington), poor Southside Chicagoans found their political influence and patronage cut off by an administration that depended increasingly on a coalition of black middle- and upper-class supporters. The result was the “gradual withdrawal of grassroots persons from the mainstream black political scene.”
SOURCE: http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=859

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.

In 2004, a typical black family had an income that was only 58 percent of a typical white family's. In 1974, median black incomes were 63 percent those of whites.
SOURCE: Economic Mobility Project http://www.economicmobility.org/reports_and_research/?id=0007

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

One in three black children from middle-income families grew up to have higher incomes than their parents. Among whites, about two-thirds of the children from middle-income families grew up to have higher incomes than their parents. SOURCE: Economic Mobility Project http://www.economicmobility.org/reports_and_research/?id=0007

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

"Together, the combination of incarcerated felons and former inmates barred from voting means that about 1.4 million, or 13 percent, of African American men are effectively disenfranchised, a rate seven times the national average. Looking ahead to younger men, the situation appears even bleaker. If the current rate of incarceration continues, at some point in their lives 30 percent of the next generation of black men (according to The Sentencing Project) will face disenfranchisement, a fraction that rises to a possible stunning 40 percent of black men who live in states that permanently bar ex-offenders from voting. Many black men, moreover, evading warrants or just fearful of potential arrest, avoid the institutions and agents of the state, thereby eliminating themselves from participation in political action."
SOURCE: http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=859

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 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. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Unequal law enforcement remains a problem in many places.

Data from the Los Angeles Police Department reveal that from July to November 2002, African-American drivers were three times more likely than whites to be asked to step out of their cars. They were also more likely to be patted down and body searched.
SOURCE: Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, Wrong Then, Wrong Now: Racial Profiling Before and After September 11, 2001, www.lccr.org (30 September 2005); U.S. General Accounting Office, Better Targeting of Passengers for Personal Searches Could Produce Better Results (Washington, D.C.: U.S. General Accounting Office, 2000).

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

Although the proportion of African Americans living in high-poverty neighborhoods has declined over the last three decades, the racial gap in economic segregation has widened. In 1960, low-income African-American families were 3.8 times more likely than poor white families to live in high-poverty neighborhoods with limited resources; by 2000 they were 7.3 times more likely to live in those areas.
SOURCE: Poverty and Race Research Action Council analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, with the assistance of Nancy A. Denton and Bridget J. Anderson, 2005. http://www.opportunityagenda.org/site/c.mwL5KkN0LvH/b.1629379/k.996D/African_Americans.html


I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

Nearly two-thirds of African Americans displaced from the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina encountered housing discrimination, according to a study by the National Fair Housing Alliance. In 66% of telephone tests, housing providers favored white callers over African American callers. In three out of five tests in which the subjects applied in person at apartment complexes, housing providers favored whites over African Americans.
SOURCE: http://www.opportunityagenda.org/site/c.mwL5KkN0LvH/b.1993935/k.52B0/Katrina__One_Year_Later.htm

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."

In one of the most comprehensive studies of post-Katrina conditions, the Advancement Project conducted interviews with more than 700 workers in New Orleans, finding that many African American survivors of the hurricane have been shut out of reconstruction jobs as a result of failed housing policies, discrimination, and a lack of transportation and other services.
SOURCE: http://www.opportunityagenda.org/site/c.mwL5KkN0LvH/b.1993935/k.52B0/Katrina__One_Year_Later.htm

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four 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.

A study that assessed whether a criminal record would damage job chances found that employers were more likely to call back white applicants with criminal records than African Americans without criminal records. SOURCE: D. Pager, “The Mark of a Criminal Record,” American Journal of Sociology Vol.108, no.5 (2003): 937-75.

I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

“The current level of [school] segregation for Latinos is the highest recorded in the forty years these statistics have been collected, while the segregation of African Americans is back to what it was in the late 1960’s, before serious urban desegregation began.” SOURCE: A Research Brief from the Civil Rights Project, by Gary Orfield and Rebecca  Frankenberg (January 2008) http://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/deseg/embargolasthavebecomefirst.pdf

I have a dream today.

African American children and youth constitute about 45% of children in public foster care and more than half of all children waiting to be adopted. SOURCE: Surgeon General’s Report http://mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/cre/fact1.asp

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

In 2000, the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse found that 71% of crack cocaine users were white, but 84% of those arrested for crack possession were African American. SOURCE: Amnesty International, U.S. Domestic Human Rights Program, Threat and Humiliation: Racial Profiling, Domestic Security, and Human Rights in the United States (New York: Amnesty International USA, 2004).

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring." And if America is to be a great nation this must become true.

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!

A 2003 study of temporary employment agencies in California found that employment agencies preferred less-qualified white applicants nearly three times as often as African American applicants. Studies in Milwaukee, New York, and other cities show similar results. SOURCE: J. Bussey and J. Trasvina, “Racial Preferences: The Treatment of White and African American Job Applicants by Temporary Employment Agencies in California,” December 2003, www.impactfund.org (13 August 2005).

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring. When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Transcript of Martin Luther King, Jr. speech, “I Have A Dream,” delivered at the Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963 copied from the Avalon Project at Yale Law School http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/treatise/king/mlk01.html

Video of Dr. King's speech: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm