ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 28, 1993                   TAG: 9401120002
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CIVIL RIGHTS

IT WAS 30 years ago today that more than 200,000 people marched on Washington, and heard Martin Luther King Jr.'s electrifying "I have a dream" speech. In its heart, the nation still feels King's loss.

There has been a lot of talk about how much things have changed in 30 years, and indeed they have. The prize then was clear and compelling: civil rights, an end to legal segregation and discrimination.

Today, everything in race relations, as in so many other areas, seems more complicated. Today's Washington march, by a coalition of civil-rights groups, is expected to be a pale reflection of the original.

This may be, in part, because a good portion of King's dreams have come true. His appeal to fairness was heard; the evil laws he fought have been overturned.

And, yet, aren't some things about the same? Black people aren't free yet from racism. There still are two Americas, separate and unequal. Race relations, if improving, are still not what they should be.

And truth still rings out from King's words of August, 1963:

"Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American Dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident - that all men are created equal.' I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down at the table of brotherhood. . . . I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!"

Much of that dream is still deferred. 


 by CNB