What happens to a dream deferred

(and how I almost forgot)

As I witness our government continue to battle through a saddening shut down , seemingly due to the inability of some of our leaders to respect the political process and appreciate the larger ramifications of their actions . . .

I almost forgot.

A little over one month ago, I witnessed the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. I listened as speaker after speaker celebrated the progress our Country has made in the fight for justice and equality for all Americans. They reminded us that we still have a long way to go before we fully realize the vision of brotherhood and sisterhood that Dr. King engraved in our history books. While legal segregation is a distant memory and race does not incite the same magnitude of violence and injustice that defined life for many minorities in the mid-20th century, Black Americans continue to struggle for justice and peace.

After rereading Dr. King’s speech — words I have listened to time and time again as a child, but never truly internalized and digested as an adult — I was moved. I was reminded that the stories I read about in school that crippled Black communities during King’s time have not changed.

Perhaps we have simply altered the characters and reframed the plot.

In his speech, Dr. King laid out four primary challenges hindering advancement for Black Americans — discrimination by private business, barriers to equal voting opportunities, police brutality and socio-economic injustice.

As President Obama remarked on the anniversary of the March on Washington, to suggest that little has changed since the Civil Rights movement dishonors the persistence and great sacrifice of the leaders of that era. And as a nation, we have made much progress.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed into law less than a year after the march, banned businesses engaged in interstate commerce from discriminating amongst their potential customers on the basis of race (in addition to a number of other measures designed to prevent unfair discrimination by the private sector). The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed several measures that made it difficult for Blacks to participate in the voting process. These initiatives and other legislative efforts led to visible improvements in opportunities for Black Americans, prompting greater participation in the political process and instilling a greater sense of hope.

And that hope did invoke change.

In 1959, approximately 55% of Black Americans lived in poverty and only 5% of Black Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 had graduated from college. Those statistics have improved dramatically. For example , in 2010, 30% of Black Americans between 18 and 24 were enrolled in a university. But as so many lamented during the 50th anniversary celebration, we have a long way to go before we reach the vision of equality that Dr. King dreamed about.

Our work is far from complete.

The income disparity between majority and minority races continues to widen at saddening rates. Unemployment for Black Americans remains more than double that of the majority population. Black communities continue to struggle with perennial violence and inadequate healthcare (an issue we are struggling to resolve). Many Black children attend substandard schools and the criminal justice system seemingly targets the young Black males our school system have left behind. Some argue that policing policies continue to target Black Americans (like Stop and Frisk in New York City or mandatory minimums that are difficult to justify), while others point towards unfortunate examples of policing gone wrong (like unfairly targeted youth or citizens taking matters into their own hands and left unchecked).

And although Black Americans have voted in record numbers in recent years, the assault on the Voting Rights Act has led to political decisions that may disenfranchise many young minority voters in the future, simply because their ID cards say student.

Oh, but I almost forgot.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it whither or fade? Does it resurface and explode onto the minds of a new generation 50 years after its birth, prompting change? One thing is absolutely certain. A dream deferred from its realization maintains the fundamental essence of its existence — it remains a dream. And we all know what so frequently happens to those late night dreams that stir us momentarily from our slumber — we forget them.

Our President, standing in the same place where Dr. King gave his famous I Have a Dream speech, eloquently noted that “the young are unconstrained by the habits of fear.”

Indeed, Dr. King himself, a young Black man hungry for change, was unafraid to abandon his scripted speech and embrace the power of vulnerability when Mahalia Jackson encouragingly whispered to him, “Tell them about the dream.”

And he did.

We need to speak out as well and share our dreams with one another. If we want to truly impact the most pressing issues in our community, we must grow restless with being passive observers and silent dreamers. We need to embrace a cause we believe in and begin working for change.

Otherwise, we will continue to focus only on sensational issues that our social feeds label as trending (quite often centering on the life and times of entertainers vying for relevance). We will engage in arguments over power dynamics (masked as meaningful debate about the need for reform), while ignoring important global events that may completely change the game altogether. We will literally watch out government shutdown.

If you don’t breathe life into your dreams, they will eventually wither away. Or you will waste precious time wondering whether you should have taken that first step.

And, it would indeed be sad to look back 50 years from now and silently say to yourself,

I almost forgot.

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Etienne Toussaint is a writer and lawyer who resides in Washington D.C. He writes frequently about social innovation, education and living a life full of purpose on his blog.