Searching For Signs Of King's Dream

Searching For Signs Of King's Dream
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A memorial in Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood bears the names of slain Chicago children stands at 112th Street and Michigan Avenue.

A memorial in Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood bears the names of slain Chicago children stands at 112th Street and Michigan Avenue.

John W. Fountain

“The daily life of the Negro is still lived in the basement of the Great Society.” -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., from “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?”

By John W. Fountain

More than four decades later, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words ring louder than the thunder on this gray summer day as I drive down Emmett Till Road. The skies cry.

The “dream” now more resembles a nightmare, no matter how great our stride toward freedom, or having now witnessed a black man sworn into the White House, or even the looming dedication Sunday of the grand white-stone structure on the National Mall in King’s memory.

Out here, in ghetto America this afternoon, the sound of thunder echoes. I hear no drum majors of justice amid the vast mountain of despair I see with my own eyes on 71st Street, which also bears in memoriam the name of the Chicago boy lynched in 1955, in Money, Mississippi.

I do, however, see signs of the times. Brown-and-white honorary street signs bearing Emmett’s name hang above these rain-washed streets that too often run red with blood — the blood of the young, the blood of the innocent, the blood of a nation.

It is one of many memorials I have witnessed over the years. Among them: shrines of teddy bears and red roses, candles and fluttering balloons, sometimes dotted with empty liquor bottles, always with prayers and heavenly wishes and signed “R.I.P.” They are memorials paid for with blood. And our inscription wall bears the tragic epitaph of our babies.

The cold rain falls steadily as I roll west. More signs: Signs of poverty. Signs of despair. Signs of economic stagnation, human degradation and social segregation against which King fought. Less apparent are signs of fulfillment of the dream for which King died.

I see an America that remains divided — ever more by class and also by race. An America at war from without and also from within.

And even as we stand poised to celebrate his life and legacy, I see more reasons to mourn. I find more just cause to come together to heal urban neighborhoods than to travel from near and far to partake in star-studded ceremonials for a lifeless stone monument that most poor children will never visit.

Pictured here is a memorial street sign on 71st Street, bearing the name of Emmett Till, a Chicago boy lynched in 1955 in Money, Miss., whose death helped fan the flame of the Civil Rights movement.

Pictured here is a memorial street sign on 71st Street, bearing the name of Emmett Till, a Chicago boy lynched in 1955 in Money, Miss., whose death helped fan the flame of the Civil Rights movement.

John W. Fountain

For here, in the wilderness, our great Promised Land mission remains incomplete and in urgent need of resuscitation — in need of more than status-quo churches, celebrity preachers and poverty pimps. In need of true ambassadors of love, justice, freedom and equality.

For even on this side of the Jordan, I see a wilderness of segregation and failing public schools that have become weapons of mass destruction. I see a wilderness of economic disparity marked by a recent study showing the median wealth of white households is 20 times that of blacks. I see a new Jim Crow, self-hate and complacency, crumbling families and community, the cannibalism of young black men. I see an absence of hope.

I see an America that remains divided — ever more by class and also by race. An America at war from without and also from within.

I continue west in my search for hope — past a flickering, blue-light police camera — through Englewood into Marquette Park, where the sight of African Americans walking these streets ought to stand alone as a sign of progress. For it was here that Dr. King in August 1966 marched for open housing and was stoned.

But here too I find more reasons for tears.

In this Marquette Park, 45 years since Dr. King marched for freedom, just days ago, a 17-year-old pregnant mother pleading for her life was mercilessly shot by a young black gunman, reportedly three times in the heart, eight times in all. Doctors delivered her son post-mortem. He still fights for his life — a victim of black-on-black male violence, even before he was born.

On the street, near where his mother Charinez Jefferson was murdered, I see no justice rolling down like waters, no righteousness flowing like a mighty stream — only a river of tears and a plastic tarp that partially shields Charinez’s teddy-bear memorial from the rain.

It’s enough to make you cry, to long for the dream that was once King’s.

And I can’t help but wonder, with tears in my eyes, amid news of a 1-year-old shot in the head, “Where do we go from here?”

Column originally published Aug. 24, 2011. In July 2016, Timothy Jones, 23, a reputed gang member, was sentenced to 90 years in prison for the murder of Charinez Jefferson.

A memorial erected by friends and family stands in honor of Charinez Jefferson, 17, a pregnant mother murdered Aug. 16 2011. (Photos: John W. Fountain)

A memorial erected by friends and family stands in honor of Charinez Jefferson, 17, a pregnant mother murdered Aug. 16 2011. (Photos: John W. Fountain)

John W. Fountain

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