FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS SUMMER, at
the March On Washington, the Reverend
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a
speech that forever altered the national
conversation around race and injustice in
America. He spoke of his Dream — a vision
of an America where individuals were
judged not by “the color of their skin, but
by the content of their character.” Despite
the remarkable progress made in the
nearly 100 years since slavery had been
abolished, King declared that day that
blacks in America were “still not free.” Five
decades later, in the shadow of the death
of Trayvon Martin, Americans are once
again fiercely debating race. What does
it mean to live in a country with a black
president, but one where he, too, can relate
to racial profiling? Where we have AfricanAmerican entertainers topping the charts,
but far more people struggling to get by?
How far have we really come?