Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of the most misunderstood public figures of the 20th Century. No one will deny that he was both a great man and a good man. He inspired an entire generations of Americans to re-examine the social contract and strive to make a better world for all people, and American propaganda tells us that he succeeded in laying the foundations of that better world that we now live in.
I will not insult the memory of Dr. King by pretending that the United States has buried the specter of institutionalized racism. This country has turned Dr. King's dream into a nightmare. As for all Americans, life is worse for African-Americans today than it was in the 1970s. Token political enfranchisement and Affirmative Action favoring middle and upper class African-Americans matters very little in the face of abject poverty and permanent economic disenfranchisement for the vast majority of African-Americans.
Pres. Obama does not epitomize the new found freedom of the African-American community; rather, he exemplifies the new spirit of the age where political leaders sell-out the constituents for cold hard cash. (Cf. A Liberal Voice on Pres. Obama.) Dr. King was for people not profit. When we see an America that cares more about people than the bottom line, then the United States will have begun to walk towards Dr. King's Dream.
