Where Do We Go (Again) From Here?Commentary on the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial

August 26, 2011By Ernest Andrew Brooks III

A minister, educator and perpetual learner, Ernest completed undergraduate studies in religion at Morehouse College and graduate studies in theology at Duke University (MDiv). Ernest currently serves as Associate Campus Minister in the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College.

This weekend as many as 500,000 people were expected to gather at the tidal basin of the Washington, DC National Mall to participate in the dedication of the first national monument in that vaunted corridor for a non-president. Some have made note of the significance of this location by declaring that there is now "a King among presidents." Hurricane Irene barreling up the eastern seaboard of the United States on a path predicted to land in the Nation's Capitol almost on que with S u n d a y ' s s c h e d u l e d 1 1 a m dedication ceremony dampened the dreams of many who hoped to witness Barack Obama, America's first President of African Descent, ceremonially unveil Dr. King's granite likeness to the world. While the official dedication was forced to be postponed due to a storm brewing in the Atlantic, Dr. King's dream of racial and economic equality in a world committed to peaceful coexistence can be beset by no similar occurrence because his dream is not time or location specific. The dream that Dr. King bequeathed to humanity through oratorical prowess on August 28, 1963 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—just yards away from the new King Memorial—was further refined through sociological and philosophical analysis in his 1967 book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? In the first chapter of this book, "Where are We?" Dr. King makes the prescient observation that "...the line of progress is never straight. For a period a movement may follow a straight line and then it encounters obstacles and the path bends."

The line of progress from 1963 to 2011 has certainly not been straight.

On July 2, 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act into law providing the express ability of federal agencies and courts to intervene in matters of racial discrimination in states and localities. On August 6, 1965 President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, prohibiting any and all barriers to the right of qualified citizens to vote, with Dr. King and other civil rights leaders looking on with a great sense of collective accomplishment. Yet, just two years later Dr. King found himself isolated and vilified by both the national political establishment and many in the African-American community for his forceful and vocal opposition to President Johnson's execution of the Vietnam War. The prevailing political logic held that African-Americans, and Dr. King as the most prominent African-American leader, should be so grateful for President Johnson's bold, risky, and tenacious support for national civil rights legislation that they dare not vocalize anything but gratitude

and full support for the President's domestic and foreign policy agenda.

Exactly one year before his April 4,1968 assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was advocating for the cause of black sanitation workers who were demanding equal pay and safe working conditions, Dr. King stood in the pulpit of New York's Riverside Church to declare that he was compelled to speak out against the Vietnam War "because my conscience leaves me no other choice." In that same 1967 speech, Dr. King announced his campaign against what he termed the triple evils of our society: racism, materialism and militarism (commonly referred to as poverty, racism and war).

As the attention of the world is drawn to the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington, DC, we as a nation must again ask the question posed by Dr. King 45 years ago, “Where Do We Go From Here?”

Today the published rate of unemployment for African-Americans hovers at a debilitating 16.2 percent even as the wider American unemployment rate stands at an economy-stalling 9.1 percent.

The American economy was brought to its knees in 2008 by a sub-prime mortgage crises leading to hundreds of thousands of foreclosures and the failure of hundreds of national and local banks because millions of people were given poorly underwritten mortgages for homes that loan officers knew they could not afford and their income could not sustain.

The United States and its allied nations have deployed in excess of 200,000 troops to sustain war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. The death toll from these campaigns stands at over 6,000 for American soldiers alone, not considering allied troops, non-military government employees, civilian and paramilitary contractors and Iraqi and Afghani combatants and civilians.

Dr. King was right—“the line of progress is never straight."

So, Where Do We Go (Again) From Here?