Hope
I wrote this for the Urban News (April 2008):
I just finished watching the History Channel’s two-hour documentary on Martin Luther King narrated by Tom Brokaw. It was extremely well done but… something was missing. There were interviews from civil rights activists like Representative John Lewis, Ambassador Andrew Young, and Martin Luther King, III, along with thoughtful commentary from contemporary activists including President Bill Clinton, Bono, Forest Whitaker, Jr., and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who grew up in Birmingham.
The program was like a wonderful BBQ sauce that tastes great but is missing some key ingredient or ingredients that give the sauce a pizzazz. That’s what was missing! Pizzazz! In spite of that, I highly recommend it.
As I sit here in my house, in a nice suburban neighborhood, in Arden, North Carolina, I am dictating this column into my Dell computer using sophisticated (translation: expensive) speech-to-text software. I mention this because it takes some capital to do what I’m doing — capital that, in the 1960s, 99% of black Americans didn’t have. My world has been made possible by the sacrifice of Martin Luther King and tens of thousands of others. I’ve attended some of the best schools that our nation has to offer. I have worked at some of the best hospitals because of those who’ve come before me (like my father who was also a doctor). For this, I am forever indebted and grateful. (more…)