Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day - A Day of Reflection

AAAA acknowledges and celebrates the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the occasion of his birth. For those who would like to recall his momentous speech given at the March on Washington in 1963, click on the video on the lower right side of this blog. As we witness the most tragic effects of the earthquake in Haiti today, we must wonder what Dr. King would say and do in the midst of this crisis.

Opponents of affirmative action frequently defend their efforts to eliminate such programs by calling for a “color-blind society” and citing Dr. King’s impassioned plea for his children to be judged “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” These claims are a blatant distortion of his words. King understood that the mere enforcement of antidiscrimination guarantees was not enough to end past and continuing discrimination. In Why We Can’t Wait, Dr. King wrote:

Among the many vital jobs to be done, the nation must not only radically
readjust its attitude toward the Negro in the compelling present, but must
incorporate in its planning some compensatory consideration for the
handicaps he has inherited in the past.[1]

It is impossible to create a formula for the
future, which does not take into account that our society has been doing
something special against the Negro for hundreds of years. How then can he
be absorbed into the mainstream of American life if we do not do something
special for him now, in order to balance the equation and equip him to compete
on a just and equal basis?[2]

Whenever this issue of compensatory or
preferential treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in
horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he should
ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable but it is not
realistic. For it is obvious that if a man is entered at the starting line
of a race three hundred years after another man, the first would have to perform
some impossible feat in order to catch up with his fellow runner.[3]

In a discussion with Dr. King about the compensatory measures taken by the Indian government to assist the Untouchables, Prime Minister Nehru explained,

“If two applicants compete for entrance into a college or university, one of the
applicants being an untouchable and the other of high caste, the school is
required to accept the untouchable.” When asked whether this was
discrimination, Nehru responded, “Well it may be. But this is our way of
atoning
for the centuries of injustices we have inflicted upon
these people.”[4]

Dr. King then wrote, “America must seek its own ways
of atoning for the injustices she has inflicted upon her Negro citizens.”

[1] Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can’t Wait, Mentor Press (Penguin Putnam, Inc.), 1963, at 134.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.

See other speeches commemorating Dr. King's birthday celebration on the website of Democracy Now: http://www.democracynow.org/

Purchase "Why We Can't Wait" from the AAAA Bookstore: http://www.affirmativeaction.org/bookstore.html