Okay, I am sure we have all heard about the remarks made by Hilary Clinton about Martin Luther King, Jr. (If you haven't, basically, Clinton made the statement "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done", which can be found here. Anyways, as the story goes, Barack Obama is attacking Hillary Clinton's campaign, bringing color issues into the race for presidency.
Now, let's get down to reality. Hillary probably should've used a better choice of words when she made that statement, and it is a statement that can be easily distorted. However, I do not think that she intended to diminish King's legacy, as many are now saying. I think what she was trying to say was that the American government did not fully acknowledge King's dream until the signing of the Civil Rights Act. Prior to that time, the American government looked down on King and anything that he wanted because in the mind of the government, blacks did not deserve equal treatment. With the signing of the Civil Rights Act, the American government had no choice but to acknowledge that we are all equal, whether or not they wanted to, because it became the law.
The fact of the matter is this: King was excellent at what he did. He fought for equality, he dedicated his life to serving the people and in the end, he died for what he believed in. In spite of his greatness, King was not the president. No matter how much marching he did, no matter how many speeches he gave, and no matter how many times he was jailed, he still did not have the power to pass a law.So in essence, he did need the president to do the job. Many people like to believe that King did everything on his own, but he did not. Don't get me wrong; he was a great man. But as a fellow black person struggling in a nation that does not want me, I know that it takes cooperation from the other party as well to bring about change.
On the flip side, had it not been for King's headstrong demonstrations, Johnson probably would not have signed the Civil Rights Act. So really, they needed each other to get the job done. So back off of Hillary. I mean, I love Obama, but don't just distort someone's words just to get ahead. That's wrong. I understand it's politics, but don't let politics get in the way of good judgment.
