#MLKDay: What if we never had to overcome?

What if the US actually treated all persons equally from the beginning?
Where would we be? 

Have you ever stopped and wondered where this country might be had, at the end of slavery, former slaves were granted full citizenship rights and privileges...separate but (un)equal never existed...the Black Codes, Jim Crow, lynchings, and firebombs never happened? What if all citizens were treated equally?

What if redlinging, restrictive covenants and gerrymandering were never implemented, and therefore neighborhoods weren't cut off from building and fully enjoying the benefits of economic prosperity?

Black men fighting for the Union in Civil War.

Where might this country have been, had these human beings been treated as human beings...finally free to determine their own fate in life without facing the terrorism visited upon them within the bounds of this country? How far ahead of the competition might this country be, had it implemented fully the ideals it espouses so boldly these days..of freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

What if grand marketing schemes built to dehumanize Black citizens never existed? What if people were punished for crimes and rehabilitated from criminality equally without thought to race, socioeconomic status, religion or color?

Where would we be, if the history taught here included all contributions by all citizens with no thought to the color of that person's skin? What if we didn't have to name a movie Hidden Figures because the figures weren't hidden?

What if jobs, dignity, and lives weren't the payment due for being treated as mere human beings and citizens of a country? What if the Civil Rights Movement was never necessary? What if oppression and inequality never existed in the United States? Where would we be as a country?

Signing of the Civil Rights Act July 2, 1964.

WHAT IF WE NEVER HAD TO OVERCOME? 

Print transcript

Deep in my heart I do believe, we shall overcome.

Now I join hands often with students and others behind jail bars singing it: ìWe shall overcome.î

Sometimes we've had tears in our eyes when we joined together to sing it, but we still decided to sing it! ìWe shall overcome.î

Lord before this victory is won some will have to get thrown in jail some more but we shall over come. Don't worry about us, before the victory is won some of us will lose jobs, but we shall overcome.

Before the victory is won, even some will have to face physical death. But if physical death is the price that some must pay, to free their children from a permanent psychological death, then nothing shall be more redemptive. We shall over come.

Before the victory is won, some will be misunderstood and called bad names and dismissed as rebel-rousers and agitators. Oh But we shall overcome.

And I'll tell you why.

We shall overcome because the arch of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

We shall overcome because Carlyle is right: "No lie can live forever."

We shall overcome because William Collin Bryant is right: "Truth crushed to earth will rise again".

We shall overcome because James Russel Lowell is right: "Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne. Yet that scaffold sways the future. And behind the dim unknown standeth God within the shadows, keeping watch above his own."

We shall overcome because the Bible is right, "You shall reap what you sow."

We shall overcome. Deep i my heart I do believe! We shall overcome.

And this with this faith we will go out and adjourn the counsels of despair and bring new light into the dark chambers of pessimism and we will be able to rise from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope. And this will be a great America! We will be the participants in making it so.

And so as I leave you this evening I say, ìWalk together children! Don't you get weary!î

Read more: http://www.sweetspeeches.com/s/214-martin-luther-king-jr-we-shall-overcome#ixzz4Vwq83YKK



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