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On August 22, 2011, a statue of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was unveiled in Washington, DC. It was the first of its kind to be erected on the National Mall—the statue of a black man. The following is a piece I wrote after President Obama’s election in 2009 as I reflected on the many firsts in Dr. King’s life and the firsts that his lifelong dream unleashed.

“The First Time”

In December 1955 an overworked black woman from Tuskegee, Alabama sat down in a place on a Montgomery bus that was not her place. Or so she’d been told. She was arrested and jailed. She’d broken a law, albeit unjust. That was a first for her.

Not long afterward, a black preacher from Georgia helped in the effort to boycott the Montgomery bus system for their unjust law. He was young and energetic. And also new, with strange new ideas. He stood up and said strange things. He helped others stand up. It was a first for him. He had a dream.

Over the next few years that young man kept standing up. In 1963, he stood up in the Birmingham jail for the cause of peace and brotherhood, and wrote a letter to a few white religious men who thought he was wrong for standing up like he did. He, and many others, stood up a few months later and they marched on Washington. A lot of people joined him. When he got there he stood up on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and finally told everybody about his dream. And then, toward the end of his life, he stood up on the mountaintop in Memphis, Tennessee to help some folks in a labor union. He got shot down. It was 1968.

But his life was not wasted. That young black preacher’s stand caused four young black men to sit down Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960. They got arrested and jailed. It was a first. That young black preacher’s stand caused whites and blacks across the nation to come together in peaceful protest. They marched and sang. And stood up. For equal access, equal opportunity, peace and freedom. They stood and sat. In Selma. In Little Rock. And a lot of places in between. They believed in the dream.

In response, there were bombings and beatings, and all manner of threats directed at the people who stood and sat. In 1963, a man named Bull said it was okay to use police dogs and fire hoses on the non-violent protesters, women and children included. Some people were shot. Some were burned to death. Some mysteriously disappeared. But few people were convicted for the beating and bombing and threats.

But finally one day, July 1964, the people in charge of the country decided that all the jailings, bombings, beatings, and killings were wrong. Their signatures said it was alright for a person to sit down or stand up wherever they pleased, regardless of creed or hue. Finally, all men had equal rights. Segregation based on race was bad. At least on paper, it was. That was a first. It opened the door for many other firsts for blacks. For all Americans.

On January 20, 2009, a young black man sat down in a place that no black man has ever sat. It was his place, as decided in a national election. It was a first for him. And for all of us. May it not be the last.

© 2009 L.L. Hargrove

Oprah Winfrey was born to a single mother in Mississippi in 1954. That was 10 years before Mississippi Freedom Summer and that infamous Mississippi burning incident. Today she’s worth almost 3 billion dollars.

Yet her record-breaking show, Oprah, drew more whites than blacks. In fact, 80% of her audiences were white women. The show boosted sales for countless authors with Oprah’s Book Club and made several small business owners very well off  with Oprah’s Favorite Things.  Were there many black authors and entrepreneurs in Oprah’s offerings? Nope. Apparently Ms. Winfrey doesn’t believe in just ‘buying black’ like some in the African American community.

Oprah has addressed sexual abuse, weight loss, sexual orientation, and even taken on Texas beef producers. I mean really, only one woman can mess with Texas.

But it seems she has never truly addressed racism. Some would say that she has somehow become a non-black. Yes, she grew up in the American Deep South during the Civil Rights struggle. And yes, she does have kinky hair and brown skin. But the distinctions stop there.

To be black in America is still closer to words like marginalized, disenfranchised, and at-risk. And Oprah is far from any of those. Thankfully, she reaches out to the ‘least of these’ but she has not, with her vast fortune and immense influence, spoken out against the ingrained systems of American racism or classism.

Perhaps in some ways she stayed clear of racism because it is, even almost 50 years of Civil Rights legislation, still a powder keg of rage and regret. Perhaps even she noticed the lack of genuine connection she had with black Americans, especially black women.

Would her words have made American racism vanish? No. Not even Oprah’s billions can make that monster go away. But I do wonder what would have happened if she had given it the same attention as she did so many issues on her 25-year-old talk show.

What do you think?