BoomerZoo Almanac for August 26-September 1, 2007: Good dream, bad dream
Perhaps one of the most uplifting, memorable moments of the Boomer Age occurred on August 28, 1963 when 200,000 people participating in a peaceful civil rights rally in Washington, D.C., heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his "I Have a Dream" speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
We still had hope – we still had both Kennedys, we’d made a breakthrough with the Soviet Union, the space race was exciting to watch, the nation was struggling with racism, but it seemed like a fight we could win! Five years later, when the Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago, Illinois, John, and Bobby Kennedy, Dr. King and even Malcolm X had all been shot and killed. The dream had become a nightmare in Vietnam. The DNC became a major battleground in the fight to get US out—and left the nation even more divided. Even more sadly, the dream had turned into a nightmare in our own cities—Chicago, Detroit, LA… But all these years later, while the 1968 Democratic National Convention leaves us with painful memories, we still remember with joy Dr. King’s speech, his beautiful, soul-stirring words. We remember those words and that day in August 1963. We remember how we wanted to stand up to be counted, to make our world a better place. As he, himself, put it: “Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends… “And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ “…With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.” It may be tattered and worn around the edges these days, but somehow, I still have that dream!
