Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Education & Access Revisited

Throughout the week, I've been preoccupied with evaluating, or perhaps reevaluating, the meaning of Martin Luther King Jr's (MLK) legacy as we have elected the first African American president of the United States, Barack Obama. I reflect upon some of the wisdom contained in Martin Luther King's letter he wrote in a Birmingham jail, with some excerpts:

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society…when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"…Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?"

…Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured? (Read the whole letter)

After contemplation, I think there one particular area that impedes our country from fully realizing MLK's dream: Education and access.

Access & Education

Having an African American president is an accomplishment for our country--in many ways we still haven't yet realized--but we need to face that reality that inequality exists. Furthermore, it's not the time to become apathetic to the continued need to restore access for all, since access for minority groups in the United States still varies greatly. We are fortunate that President Obama can serve as an example as the type of achievement possible in the United States for minorities. Unfortunately it doesn't eliminate the serious problems facing our country. It is known that education and access for the future are inextricably linked. Knowing this link, I think one of the most important things our nation needs to continue to work on in order to fully realize MJK's dream is equality in education.

Still in the modern United States, where a person is born largely dictates their ability to graduate High School or go to College. This inequality continues to persist along socioeconomic and racial lines. It is known that there are lower educational expectations for people growing up in rural or urban areas than in many suburban school districts. Receiving my own primary and secondary education in a rural school district, I am aware of these challenges that parallel the economic access of the community.

How can we expect all of the citizens of the United States to have equal opportunity to find their "American dream" if we subjugate thousands of our own citizens to sub-par public schools? According to the National Assessment for Educational Progress, 4th graders growing up in low-income communities are 3 grade levels behind their peers in high-income communities, and 50% of these students won't graduate by the time they're 18 years old. Until we move beyond the apartheid war waged in our low income communities, there's little hope to fully realize MLK's dream. Along with this, I think our nation needs to revisit the integration debate. Many school districts, especially urban districts, still are cast along racial lines. Our culture needs to have serious conversations about the ramifications of creating an educational apartheid in the 21st century, as suggested by Jonathan Kozol in his book Shame of the Nation.

Luckily there are programs and people within the United States that are fighting against this educational injustice. Programs such as Teach for America have started closing the achievement gap. Other organizations have been formed to encouraged early retirees to dedicating time in the classroom either teaching or volunteering in public schools. These will help somewhat, but are in many ways putting band-aids over bigger problems.

Our nation needs lasting education reform that encourages bright graduates of colleges to becoming teachers. No Child Left Behind sought to work on this problem, but at the end of the day probably created even more problems. Any program that punishes schools that are underachieving by eliminating funding obviously misses the problem in the first place.

Our country deserves embrace the fact that kids who are minorities and/or live in poverty can achieve educational results. For far too long the prevailing assumption has been that certain groups did not have the ability to achieve. Study after study show that these students can achieve. They need to help to high levels of academic expectation and rigor in order to achieve the results. Wow, these sure are radical concepts: high levels of academic expectation.

Coming back to MLK's legacy for a minute, my last point is still linked with the underlying racism that our nation needs to deal with. Even though our country has come a very long way, racism is alive and continues to fester in our nation. We have the ingenuity and talent within this country to reestablish access and educational opportunities for everyone and erradicate racism once and for all--living in the richest country in the world. Our largest investment in our future as a sovereign nation begins with investing in our next generation of citizens.

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Note:

There are plenty of other areas our country must address relating to MLK's vision: Equality under the law, voting, and GLBT issues for instance. This post focused only on two areas, but I don't want to minimize other important issues our nation must face. His vision will become more important our demographic population continues to become more mixed and the edges of one's ethnicity blurs.