Civil Rights

When Martin Luther King was killed in Memphis I was a college student, active in the 1968 campaign for president, protesting the Vietnam War and engaged in civil rights. The fact that 40 years have gone by since that weekend does not make those events any less fresh in my mind.

I remember the American flag and the United Nations flag at Macalester College in St. Paul being lowered to half-mast and the prayers that were said as students gathered in front of the chapel. I remember the shock that another hero could be taken from us less than five years after John Kennedy was assassinated. I remember calling home to my family in Washington, D.C., who told me that they could see the smoke and fires from the downtown riots. And I remember the footage of Robert Kennedy in Indiana as he spoke to an African-American crowd who had not yet heard the news and his quoting Aeschylus: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." Read more...

Headline in The New York Times: "81% SAY NATION IS HEADED ON WRONG TRACK.”

Question to the other 19 percent: WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING?

Wherever we look, we see the American dream suffering a rude awakening.

The Constitution's promises have been frequently swept aside by heavy-handed government officials who are motivated by simple-minded expedience more than a tradition of civil liberties that is supposed to make us unique. Read more...

On April 4, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy made the following comments in Indianapolis:

Ladies and gentlemen: I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening.

Because ... I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee. Read more...

Driving in to work this morning, I was stunned that local radio host Chris Plante on Washinton, D.C.'s WMAL invited his listeners to have an open and honest discussion on race. What with all the excitement generated by Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) “seminal” speech — remarks that my friend Chris Matthews has labeled as being worthy of Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln?

In any event, an African-American caller phoned in to say that White America is to blame for most of the crime, drugs and woe that befall the black community. As incredulous as I was, another called opined that whites operate on an unequal playing field and that blacks just do the best they can under the circumstances.

As we come upon the 40th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King (April 4), I can’t believe we’ve fallen so far away from the spirit and hope of his dream here at the beginning of the 21st century. What happened to being judged by the content of one’s character rather than the color of one’s skin? What happened to the calls for self-reliance and responsibility? Read more...

What a day!!! Mark down March 18. In the same 24-hour period, we dealt with some of the country's fundamental issues: racism, guns, sex and (oh, yeah) five years of war in Iraq.


Since glossing over color just wasn't working, thanks to his pastor, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) decided it was time to confront our country's racial antagonism head on. It's fair to say it was a graceful description of an awkward problem that, despite progress, still embitters us.


For evidence of that progress, by the way, look to Albany, N.Y., where another African-American politician was dealing with a problem that had nothing to do with being black. This was an even more primal issue: adultery.


New Gov. David Patterson (D) and his wife Michelle began their lives as New York's first couple by acknowledging that in the past they had been an unfaithful couple — that each had been involved in affairs with others during their marriage. They were hoping, they said, to put their pasts in the past. Wouldn't that be terrific. Read more...

Barack Obama's historic speech on race is the beginning of what could become a majority coalition even more powerful than the New Deal realignment of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

What Obama can now do is take the debate on racial injustice to a powerfully transforming level that reaches across all racial and religious divisions and gives voice to the voiceless, respect to the disrespected and power to the powerless.

What was extraordinary about the Obama speech, beyond the straight talk and the truth telling, was that Obama was not merely speaking TO different constituencies but was speaking FOR different constituencies. Read more...

Peter Fenn & Frank Donatelli discuss the issues surrounding the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

I have found myself more and more troubled as the Clinton Machine seeks to derail the candidacy of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Sure, politics is a vicious game and the Clintons are well seasoned in the art of hand-to-hand combat.

No, what disturbs me most about the Clintons is the manner in which they have targeted the senator and initiated a disingenuous campaign where they claim they would never focus on race — all the while focusing on race in the campaign.

I first took stock of this when the husband of former New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen alluded to Obama’s drug use and then noted it would be the Republicans who would make an issue of it, not the Democrats. Hmm … I wonder who brought that up in the first place? Team Clinton. Read more...

On Tuesday, Jose Padilla was sentenced to 17 years and four months in federal prison for conspiring to commit terrorism — even though the judge declared that the government failed to prove he was a terrorist to start with.

Most Americans don’t care. But they should. Here’s why.

When Padilla was arrested in May 2002. John Ashcroft accused him of carrying a “dirty bomb” into the United States.

Yet, even though he was an American citizen, Padilla was charged with no crime. Instead, he was labeled an “enemy combatant” and held and tortured in a Navy brig for three and a half years without being able to see a lawyer or defend himself in a court of law. Read more...

“I have a dream where all of God’s children are judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”  Martin Luther King, “I Have a Dream,”   1963

Forty-five years after these words were spoken, Dr. Martin Luther King’s words continue to inspire Americans from all walks of life.  The fact that the sentiment expressed above was controversial in the early 1960s but now is so universally shared indicates how far our country has come in our quest to implement Dr. King’s noble sentiments. Read more...