COLUMN: "More Than A Dream"

From Harold Ford's "Papa Don't Take No Mess," Spring '92.From Harold Ford's "Papa Don't Take No Mess," Spring '92.· The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Holiday, celebrated this past Monday by just about everyone except those maverick Arizonians, provided me with a small case study. The majority of people -- both black and white -- that I talked with about the MLK holiday consistently referred to this holiday as the "black" holiday, as if MLK Day is some natural offspring of a corporate affirmative action or quota program. Judging from what many people said, Martin Luther King Jr.'s entire legacy conveniently consists of a "dream." A dream that articulates and endorses an unbounded love and respect for humanity and social justice. When Dr. King's oldest daughter, Yolanda King, spoke at the University on Monday night, she agreed that if one didn't know any better, one might think Dr. King authored and delivered only one speech in his lifetime. Albeit powerful and now legendary, the "I Have A Dream" speech represents only a slice of the King legacy. But it is understandable that people would reduce King's stature to a "dream" because it then becomes easy to discount his accomplishments. By placing King's legacy in the context of a "dream," his legacy is robbed of its true essence -- its American reality. Dr. King's life -- and legacy -- was littered with concrete and tangible results, not just dreams. A man cannot accomplish the most succesful bus boycott in American history without doing something other than dreaming. It was primarily the success of this year-long boycott that signaled to people around the country and the world that black Americans would no longer tolerate being treated like second-class citizens in their own country. However, people were so intrigued blacks could then ride anywhere they chose, that King's methodology was basically ignored. King's approach to redressing the Montgomery bus laws demonstrated his understanding of the American way. If King ever believed in the fluidity and perfection of the American political system, Montgomery robbed him of his political virginity. All of the poetic rhetoric in the world would not make local, state and federal bureaucracies improve laws. Dr. King could demonstrate time and time again the flagrant inconsistencies of the busing and voting laws in Montgomery, Birmingham, Atlanta, Memphis and the rest of the South. But no institutional change was made in Montgomery until King hurt the city's purse strings by boycotting. It was depressing testimony that morality and justice alone could not topple inequality and injustice. It finally took good old American capitalism to overcome the egregious segregation policies of the South. Not dreams. Indeed, Dr. King had comprehended the meaning of the American political landscape. King emerged onto the American scene at a time when America suffered from a lack of direction. He acted as a rudder for a ship rapidly speeding towards catastrophe. But don't be fooled. It was not only a dream that enabled King to lead this nation from the dark pits of injustice and immorality. Dr. King realized that money moved America -- not dreams alone. And, in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, that revelation cost him his life. As his daughter touched upon Monday night, Dr. King was not assassinated because he had a dream. He was brutally murdered because he tried to give meaning to his dream by empowering people with a peculiarly American economic weapon -- capitalism. Dr. King was killed because he had stopped dreaming. · Harold Ford is a senior History major from Memphis, Tennessee. Papa Don't Take No Mess will appear alternate Thursdays.

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