WE ARE NOT DONE YET… THE DREAM UNFOLDS

by

Regina Gardner

In 1988, a young Lawrence Fishburne bolted from his dorm room, ran across the campus yard, and screamed at the top of his lungs, “WAKE UP!” in the controversial Spike Lee movie, School Daze. Although some may have heeded this clarion call, for the most part, it fell on deaf ears. Pinpointed on a timeline, Fishburne’s wake up call occurred at the exact mid-point between the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 and the election of President Barack Hussein Obama in 2008. In hindsight, it comes across as a foreshadowing of what was yet to come.

African-Americans finally received full benefits of their legalized citizenship on paper, but something still wasn’t quite right. We had been given our long-awaited rights of freedom, but were still gaining in disparate outcomes with regard to poverty, unemployment, infant mortality, health disparities, incarceration rates, and the list goes on. And so it seems that Spike Lee was absolutely right. We WERE in a “Daze” of sorts. We were under the impression that we were free. Surely we were free, because we’d earned it. Fresh lumps on the head, spit in the eyes, and charred remains hanging from trees proved that we had suffered enough to earn our freedom; but many of us didn’t really understand the meaning of freedom. Sure we’d earned it, but did we know how to maintain it? We dragged ourselves over freedom’s finish line as best we could… maimed, frightened, and half-crazy, feeling a meager since of joy and pride in our hearts that WE’D FINALLY MADE IT.

However, many of us see NOW that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was just the beginning. It legalized many citizenship rights on paper, but it did not address the complexities of institutionalized racism and the stereotypes and prejudices that remained in the hearts of men. It’s been 40 years plus that we’ve wandered around in the wilderness, all the while being harassed (NWA, 1986), excluded (True Colors Investigation by Diane Sawyer,1991), beaten (Rodney King,1991), and even killed (James Byrd,1998) during that time. But I can’t help asking the question, ‘Why now’? Why is everyone so wide-awake now? Was it the overwhelming irony of having an African-American President, while some still thought it was okay to proudly wave the confederate flag that did it? Or, maybe it was social media and the invention of the camera phone that finally confirmed the sneaking suspicions we all had, but couldn’t prove.

Whatever the reason(s), we have indeed embarked upon an age of an AWAKENING in America. Everywhere I go on the internet, I run into people who desire to know more, and with sources like Google, and Facebook, etc. IT IS absolutely possible. Because our friendships and acquaintances overlap racial and cultural lines, we are now coming to understand what may offend others and why. We are beginning to see many of the nuances and not just the stereotypes; and are therefore beginning to develop better tolerance for those who are different. For example, I can be a white person and still know more about Kanye West than you do as a black person; or, I can be a pro-black panther type and still have overlapping interests with white people who listen to the rock group Chevelle.

However, simultaneously there has to be a more concentrated AWAKENING of black people to re-energize, re-focus, and re-dedicate themselves to enriching and enhancing a very strong and vibrant culture that made discoveries in science (from Andrew Jackson Beard to Neil deGrasse Tyson), medicine (from Dr. Daniel Hale Williams to Dr. Ben Carson), contributions in literature (from Phyllis Wheatley to Alice Walker), and the arts (from Ed Bell to Wynton Marsalis).

Close attention should be paid to strengthening both family and community ties and striving for educational excellence in all circumstances. WE ARE STILL STANDING AND SURVIVING ON THE PRAYERS PRAYED BY OUR FOREFATHERS AND MOTHERS as they rode on slave ships from Africa… as they cried themselves to sleep at night in the slave quarters… as they toiled the land as sharecroppers… as they journeyed off to fight in World Wars… as they ventured off to school at HBCU’s… as they marched and participated in sit-ins… as they walked that long road to Selma to pass freedom’s finish line. The power of those prayers will continue to carry us forward as we AWAKEN, and onward as the dream unfolds