The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set newsroom policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.
Susan Young is the Bangor Daily News opinion editor.
Sixty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech in Washington that would become his most famous, and most quoted.
On Aug. 28, 1963, he spoke of having a dream – a dream “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal;” “that the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood;” and that his “children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
In parts of the speech that are too often ignored or glossed over, including in the past by the BDN editorial board, he also reminded Americans – many of them white and comfortable – that racism remained a reality in America and equality was but a faint dream for many people of color.
“But 100 years [after the Emancipation Proclamation], the Negro still is not free,” King said from the steps of the Lincoln Monument. “One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check.”
“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” he continued.
“It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned,” King said. “Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.”
Sixty years later, that promissory note is still in default, which should alarm and outrage all of us.
Nationally, Black Americans are more than twice as likely to live in poverty than their white counterparts. In Maine, the disparity is worse, with the poverty rate nearly three times higher for Black residents than those who are white.
As a group, Black workers are paid less than white workers, earning 76 cents to every $1 earned by white Americans, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In Maine, Black workers earn only 63 percent of what white workers make.
The gap is larger now than it was 40 years ago, and it can’t be explained by differences in education and skills, the Economic Policy Institute concluded in a recent analysis.
Black Americans are twice as likely to be unemployed than white Americans. The disparity is a little smaller in Maine.
Because of generations of discriminatory housing and lending practices, the average net wealth of Black families is just a tiny fraction of that of white families.
These practices, known as redlining, havealso led to persistent disparities that go well beyond economics. Industrial facilities were more likely to be located near redlined neighborhoods, raising the risk of contamination and pollution. These areas are also more likely to be “food desserts,” areas without large grocery stores or other sources of healthy foods.
As one consequence of this division, Black Americans have a shorter life expectancy than their white peers. They are more likely to have chronic diseases. Black mothers are at a much higher risk of dying during pregnancy or after childbirth and their babies are more likely to be premature and underweight.
Black Americans continue to face a disproportionate amount of police violence in this country. They are roughly three times as likely to be killed by police than white Americans, and five times as likely to be incarcerated.
This, sadly, is only a partial list of the ways that Black Americans have been, as King said, “crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.”
Sixty years after King’s famous “I have a dream” speech, Americans and Mainers with power – most of whom are still white – have a lot of work to do to move us toward a society that is more equitable and less discriminatory, a society that can, finally, live up to his dream.
