Does 'I Have a Dream' Need Redefinition?
Monday, January 18, 2010 at 6:58PM In honor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday, we share his inspiring, motivating “I Have a Dream Speech” speech, delivered on my birthday on Aug. 28, 1963.
These words inspired me as a young woman on the Minnesota prairie in ways I can’t explain, bearing an impact on my thinking and values that I don’t fully understand to this day.
Racism At My House
We didn’t have Black people living in my Midwesterrn town. I didn’t grow up in a segregated society, and race relations weren’t part of the culture of my daily life.
It would be 1968 before racism hit home. I accidentally overheard a family member on the phone, speaking with the builder of our suburban development. I still can’t articulate publicly what was said, because I am both ashamed and still incredulous over the event.
My family member explained to the builder of our house — without an ounce of ambiguity — what would happen to him, if he sold the house across the street to a successful Black veterinarian. The words of that phone conversation — never discussed or even acknowledged until now — have rung in my ears for decades.
I knew this man quite well, as the first Black person I spoke with, in my teen-girl life. He chatted with me in the evening, waiting for his prescriptions to be filled each night. I worked in the cosmetic department next door.
The Black veterinarian did not become our neighbor, even though he was well-qualified, and we never discussed the incident.
Starry Nights and ‘Yes We Can’
Watching footage of the civil rights movement, I was transported in memory to a warm, starry night in Wainscott, LI. My weekend guests were my dear friend Lauryce and two of her African American girlfriends, who I knew casually.
We were dining outside on the deck of my house, enjoying one of those glorious, East End summer night dinners under the moon, a night so beautiful that we all felt blessed with the beauty and good fortune of our lives.
No matter that I was the hostess. I was technically the outsider, because these three Black women had grown up in Charleston, SC.
Relaxed with our wine drinking, the three Southern belles fell into animated, larger-than-life conversation about life in the segregated South. There was a lot of hollering and laughter going on, even if the trio was terribly sophisticated.
When the women laughed about the so-called advantages of sitting in the balcony of the movie theater — God knows, I don’t remember what benefits were for real — I could only cry inside, that these beautiful Black women would endure such humiliation in their young lives.
They weren’t play-acting for my benefit. Many oppressed peoples develop humor to help them deal with misfortune, and I was seeing it first hand.
