Watching the Dream

Hello Friend, I’m sorry for the delay in this posting but sometimes life gets in the way of, well, life. Next week I’ll be talking about September 11, by than hopefully l will be back on schedule. Today I’d like to address “Watching the Dream”

August 28, 2013 marked the 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech. In 1963 I was really too young to remember much about it and I certainly didn’t understand the significance of the event.

I was born and raised just north of the Mason Dixon line. In 1963 depending on how close or how far you were from the line determined how much segregation you experienced.  As I said, I was on the north side, but not by much. In fact the line follows the southern border of Pennsylvania west between Wetzel and Marshall Counties in West Virginia to the Ohio River, or Ahia River as I used to say.  My family name is Wetzel and my grandfather had a brother named Marshall. As you can see my roots run deep in that area.

The Wetzel family arrived to the Appalachian Mountains in 1770, which until 1863 was still Virginia. I’ve never heard anything about the family being involved in slavery of any kind. I believe they were simply poor farmers in the uncharted mountains; although Indians were the problems they had to deal with, which I’m sure is how the Indians felt about the Wetzel’s.

In fact, West Virginia was the only state to succeed from the Confederate South during the Civil War. Few if any farmers had slaves in the fifty northwestern counties that were to become West Virginia. 

In 1963 I was still in elementary school in a very small town, in fact, it wasn’t a town it was called a village. We only had one school for grades 1-6, no kindergarten and we only had two black children in our school; a girl in my class and her older brother in my older brother’s class. I never thought anything about them being black, and I certainly never questioned what it were like to be the only black children. As I look back I wonder what they may have felt. 

I don’t remember any of the kids treating the two any differently than anyone else. I do however remember one of the teachers punishing the girl and a white classmate for being best friends. They would play during recess and skip and hold hands the way little girls do and the teacher taking the little white girl and telling her not to play with the black girl. It didn’t make any sense to me at the time and I must say it makes even less sense to me today. I think I was blessed, even at a young age, that I didn’t see color.

The neighboring town did have two community centers and two pools; one for whites and one for blacks. One day in the mid 60’s the cry of the wolf went out because the blacks had gone into the white’s pool.  The area didn’t have much in the way of news coverage yet I can still see the film of black children jumping into the pool and some adults not liking it much. I only remember being confused.

Around 1966 I had an older cousin that moved to Cincinnati. She was like my big sister so as she moved I was also packed into the station wagon to head south to help with her children.

While I was there helping to set up her new home, her husband had to fly somewhere on business. I was confused because the Cincinnati, Ohio Airport is located in Covington, Kentucky. Admittedly it doesn’t take much for me to become confused. To add to my confusion, this same day Martin Luther King, Jr. was to speak in Cincinnati. As we traveled to the airport the highway was congested with military trucks and tanks, the National Guard with weapons riding or hanging on the outside of the vehicles.

Now imagine if you will, I have already said I lived in a village, here I am in the big city of Cincinnati which in itself is overwhelming, and now I’m seeing military tanks and guns. It’s as vivid today as it was then. I didn’t know what to think or feel I know my cousin was anxious and wanted to get her children and me home as quickly as possible. Once home we watched the events unfold peacefully as I recall. Needless to say it is burned into my memory.

So here we are 50 years later and it should be amazing to all how far we have come as a country. I don’t know how Dr. King came to choose August 28, 1963 as the date of the event, but I do know that there are no coincidences and in Romans 8:28 it says “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

In 1963 the United States was less than 100 years removed from slavery. In 2008, less than 50 years later, the country elected the first black president. It is impossible to look at any workplace and not see a black person at every level of responsibility. I would imagine that even in my little village there are more than two black children in the school.

I have no idea what it is like to grow-up black in America. I only know what it is like to grow-up me. I wonder what Dr. King thinks as he looks down on the current events. On the one hand ‘we the people’ have elected a black president, yet on the other hand it seems race relations are worse today than they have been, unemployment, government services, fatherless homes, babies born out of wedlock, and abortion.

I didn’t vote for President Obama but it had nothing to do with the color of his skin. Yet the moment anyone disagrees with anything he says or does, I’m a racist. I wasn’t a racist when I was 10 let alone today. In fact the Presidents color was the one thing I liked about him the most. I cried on inauguration day just like many people did. I saw this as an opportunity for the black community to look up to a brilliant man with a beautiful smart wife and two beautiful daughters; a role model that didn’t have gold teeth and tattoos talking about women as mere objects.

Fifty years ago I saw two little girls forbidden to play together by a racist teacher and now I was seeing a black man chosen to be the most powerful man in the world.

I think it is time to go back to Dr. Kings dream stop complaining about bad choices and behavior. I don’t believe that Dr. King wanted a hand out but a hand up and for people not to throw obstacles in his way. I always have and I pray with God’s grace, I always will continue to judge people by the content of their character and not by the color of there skin.

It doesn't mean we need to live in a Fairy Tale but the fact that life isn't fair is how we build our character that others will see instead of just the color of our skin.