Still the right dream

Friday, April 4, 2008 | 2:08 a.m.

Forty years ago today Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered, struck down by an assassin’s bullet, as he stood outside his motel room. In Memphis, Tenn., to support a sanitation workers’ strike, King had energized a rally the night before, speaking his now famous words: “I’ve been to the mountaintop ... I’ve seen the Promised Land.”

Those were words of incredible hope not just for the striking workers, who were paid a menial wage for difficult work, but for America as well. King had spent his life galvanizing the civil rights movement with his stirring hope that America could enter a “Promised Land” ruled by racial, economic and social justice.

There have undoubtedly been remarkable strides toward that promised land. The Democratic candidate for president this year will be either a black man or a woman unthinkable a generation ago. And there is greater parity among the races and fewer examples of the open prejudice and racism than there were a generation ago. But King’s dream has yet to be fully realized.

Today poverty levels among minorities, particularly blacks, are still shockingly high, and America’s social safety net is still surprisingly thin.

Even the Memphis sanitation workers still struggle. USA Today reported Thursday that 24 workers from 1968 are still on the job. One of them, 72-year-old Nathaniel Broome, said he was working a $15-an-hour job because he doesn’t have a pension.

And much like 40 years ago, America is mired in a fruitless war halfway around the world. A year to the day before he was killed, King spoke out against the Vietnam War, noting the strife diverted attention from America’s domestic problems by continuing “to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.”

King’s words resonate today because America has yet to fully address the problems he worked to solve. The night before he was killed, he challenged his audience with words that could just as well be spoken today:

“Let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge, to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.”

We do indeed. The only fitting tribute to a man of King’s character would be to take up his challenge and renew his effort to bring America into the Promised Land.