Comment: Living up to King’s ‘Dream’ requires an honest history

Published 1:30 am Saturday, September 2, 2023

By John Lovick / For The Herald

This week we recognized the anniversary of one of the most pivotal points of the civil rights era. On Aug. 28, 1963, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place. This massive protest saw more than 250,000 people gather in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

The event featured many prominent civil rights leaders of the day, most notably Martin Luther King Jr. who delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. That’s the surface-level recounting of what happened that day.

As is the case with all major moments in history, it is so critical for us to understand the context of an event to truly know its complexity and importance.

What led a a quarter-million people to our nation’s capital that day? What compelled them to stand in the hot summer sun? What basic human right had been denied them or a member of their family that led them to participate in this seminal day in U.S. history?

Seven years ago, during the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., former President George W. Bush — let me repeat that name one more time — former Republican President George W. Bush, said at the opening dedication of the museum that, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

To me, that statement says so well why it is critically important that we continue to both learn and teach our shared history, even if it isn’t always pretty.

We all love this country, and I am here to tell you that it is possible to love something with all of your heart, but at the same time understand that it is not perfect. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.

So when we talk about the March on Washington, when we talk about the greatness of Dr. King’s speech, let’s tell the whole story. Teach about the beatings, the arrests, and other barbaric tactics used against Dr. King and other civil rights leaders that led up to that day and continued well past it.

We should recognize the importance of the people who attended the march, but never forget those who couldn’t.

World War II veteran and civil rights leader Medgar Evers was shot and killed in his driveway just two and half months prior to the march. Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was killed in Mississippi on August 28, 1955, eight years prior to the march. And more than 4,000 African Americans were lynched in the 70 years leading up to the March on Washington.

We must tell their stories, too.

I had the honor of meeting one man who was at the march that day. In June of 2018 I had the good fortune to sit and talk with Georgia Congressman John Lewis. I’m sure most of you know Congressman Lewis’ personal story.

A young John Lewis delivered a speech at the march that was viewed by some civil rights leaders of the time as too aggressive. He spoke about a “serious social revolution” and if you go back and listen to his speech now, six decades later, it is still very much relevant to what continues to happen to this very day.

When we met, we spoke, but mostly I listened.

During the course of our conversation, he said something to me that I wish I would have heard earlier in my life. He told me to “never let anyone break my spirit” and that he had never let anyone break his spirit.

Now if someone was not taught the full story of Congressman Lewis or the civil rights movement, you might not be able to appreciate how truly amazing and profound that statement is.

This after all was a man that less than two years after the March on Washington was headed to Montgomery, Ala., along with 600 other civil rights marchers in search of voting rights when they were met on Selma, Ala.’s Edmund Pettus Bridge by local law enforcement. There Lewis and hundreds of others were beaten to within an inch of their lives in what came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.”

I’ve watched in sadness as other states have stopped teaching our shared history. PEN America, a group that tracks public school book bans in our country reports that since July 2021, more than 4,000 books have been pulled from school shelves. Many of these books include themes about race and racism, activism, or feature characters who are people of color and/or LGBTQ+.

In our state we’ve gone the other direction. We’ve passed laws in our Legislature to ensure Washington educators have the tools needed to best teach ethnic studies in their coursework. Washington students learn about the contributions and the hardships of all people. In addition they learn our shared history, and AP courses in Washington high schools don’t sugarcoat slavery or the civil rights movement.

We must face our past. The good and the bad.

We must tell the whole story so that we can learn and not repeat the mistakes and violence that came before.

America is still a great country. Flaws do not make something not great, it just makes it imperfect, and that’s OK as long as we learn from those flaws.

Let me close with a quote from another American president. Last year in his proclamation celebrating Juneteenth, President Biden said: “Great nations do not ignore their most painful moments, they face them. We grow stronger as a country when we honestly confront our past injustices.”

So each day please join me in a commitment to tell the whole story of America, the glory, and the indignities. Because when we are honest with ourselves about our shared past, it only makes us stronger as we move into the future. That’s how we shall overcome.

Sen. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek, represents the 44th Legislative District.