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	We've forgotten Martin Luther King (Published January 26, 2004) By MATT WENNERSTEN

On Jan. 19 our nation commemorated the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. with a particularly American combination of reverence, ignorance, service and idleness.

King is a towering figure in American consciousness – a leader of the civil rights movement, spokesman for the disadvantaged and dispossessed, pastor, scholar, hero. The memory of King is a hallowed one. We proclaim a day of national unity in his honor. Almost every American adult can quote King, if nothing more than "I have a dream."

Even so, in many ways – in fact, in some of the most important ways – we have forgotten King. We have forgotten the meaning behind the man. We have forgotten his heart of hearts, the philosophy that drove him to root out injustice and demand freedom and equality for all people.

If the crowd at Rev. King’s sermon in Memphis in 1968, when he testified that he had "been to the mountaintop," were re-assembled and King were to tell the faithful that we have forgotten our history, they would once again shout "Yeah, that’s right."

And damned are we if we forget our history, as we are doomed to repeat it. The achievements of King were paid for in blood. There is precious little more that we can afford to spill, yet the achievements of Rev. King and the civil rights movement are rapidly eroding.

Lest we forget, King spoke out for freedom. In our current age, in our war on terror, we have forgotten that freedom is precious and hard won. We allow our government to imprison citizens without charges or trial. We allow government agencies to secretly gather information about our habits, our lives, our associations and our travels. We allow our brothers and sisters and our children to be jailed in ever-increasing numbers through inflexible sentencing and "three strikes you’re out" laws, while money for prevention and treatment is cut to a fraction of our dream of a Great Society.

King knew that our government can only do what we allow. "A man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent," he said.

Lest we forget, King spoke out for truth: "I’m concerned about a better world. I’m concerned about justice; I’m concerned about brotherhood; I’m concerned about truth."

King demanded the truth: "As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free."

We are enslaved of the mind when we swallow falsehoods and lies – we fight a war for false purposes in Iraq, we are falsely told of weapons of mass destruction, we are falsely told that global warming does not exist, we are falsely told that Affirmative Action is no longer necessary when the proportion of African-Americans who hold graduate or professional degrees is only half as much as whites.

Lest we forget, King spoke out for equality and desegregation. In 1968 he said: "In elementary schools, Negroes lag one to three years behind whites, and their segregated schools receive substantially less money per student than the white schools."

According to a recent report by Harvard University, schools are almost as segregated now as they were when Rev. King was assassinated. And to underline the fact that King’s words are universal, this same study found that Hispanic students are even more segregated than African-American students; more than 80 percent of Latinos in western states attend predominantly minority schools.

Lest we forget, King spoke out for peace and non-violence: "Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate through violence." Yet we make war on terror.

Lest we forget, King spoke out for the vote: "Give us the ballot, and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights." The travesty that was the recent D.C. presidential primary, which turned out only 16 percent of eligible voters, needs no further condemnation.

Lest we forget, King spoke out for love and worried over "Americans [who] seek their goals through power devoid of love and conscience." In 1967 King warned: "It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our times."

Our recent history of immorality amongst Enron executives, defense contractors, our own presidents and the widespread philosophy of individual greed triumphing over the common good are testimony that this crisis has not been averted. Our current Republican business leaders chafe at any taxes they might have to pay to contribute to our community.

Once again, King said it best: "We’ve come a long way in our understanding of human motivation and of the blind operation of our economic system. Now we realize that dislocations in the market operation of our economy and the prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will...We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands, it does not eliminate all poverty."

For many of my students, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was simply a day off from school. I worry for them, as I know that my kids are one step from the firing line of modern American society. In a few short years, my kids will be thrust as adults into everything that is both great and difficult about American society – its politics, its job market, its laws and its opportunities.

Roughly 50 years ago, Rev. King started speaking out on the injustices he saw in our world. It is to our credit that we honor what he accomplished, that we continue to question our progress. It is to our shame that what has been achieved is slowly slipping away.

In this year, let us rededicate ourselves to the ideals of Rev. King – for our children, for our country and for ourselves. Let us reach back beyond King, to Abraham Lincoln, who closed his second inaugural address with this message: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." Amen.

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Wennersten is a third year mathematics teacher at Bell Multicultural High School in Columbia Heights and a graduate of the D.C. Teaching Fellows program (http://www.dcteachingfellows.org). Please send stories, comments or questions to mwenners@yahoo.com.

Copyright 2004, The Common Denominator