As we observe Black History Month this February, I am blessed to reflect on my family’s history — “The King Family Legacy.” While we have grown from tragedy to triumph, there are always poignant reflections.
This Black History Month, I’d like to ask for prayers for our family as we observe the passing of our beloved family member, Dexter Scott King. He will be missed.
Also, I’d like to honor the memory of my grandmother. “Big Mama” King was a talented musician, civil rights leader, and woman of faith—and we would all do better to learn from her example.
I’d like to also honor the life and legacy of Bishop Dean Nelson; beloved Man of God, family man, community leader.
Every year since his death, I am reminded of one of my Uncle the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s most famous quotes. From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he declared that he had a dream. He said, “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.”
For many, that creed reflects the very principles this country was built upon and enshrined in our founding documents. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream embraces life, liberty, and the pursuit of property for ALL people. His dream includes equal rights, equality under the law, opportunity, and dignity for all Americans as the one blood, one human race, regardless of skin color.
In recent history, for four years, we saw the American Dream reignited. With our 45th president at the helm, America’s African American community wasn’t pandered to, offered handouts, or pushed to embrace pro-abortion and anti-family policies. Instead, our African American communities experienced breakthroughs, human dignity, and new opportunities to dream and succeed in life.
During the Trump years, African Americans benefitted from this chance to make their own way in life. Policies like Opportunity Zones, tax and regulation cuts, school choice, a secure border, and global stability helped the Black unemployment rate, and the Black poverty rate hit the lowest levels ever recorded in the history of our country, and Black median household income rise to the highest it's ever been.
Sadly, this progress was interrupted, and all of these trends were reversed the moment President 46 took office. Under “Bidenomics,” positive initiatives such as school choice and sanctity of life, religious freedom, and public safety have been driven from the public square and replaced to promote abortion—and the Department of Justice has been weaponized against people of faith and sanctioned the demonization of political opponents.
Sadly, many of America’s leaders have either gone silent or abandoned old-fashioned common sense and morals and instead embraced a formula of pandering and neglect, while the problems faced by the Black community get worse and worse. In abandoning the solutions that work, the current administration has been more interested in things like distributing crack pipes for “racial equity,” stirring the “race-baiting” pot where road overpasses are built, and using the administrative state to push anti-family and anti-life policies on the Black community.
Added to this sad situation comes a curveball attack on my uncle’s dream from a surprising corridor. As a result, many minds are reeling at this effort to rebuke the dream. My heart is broken over the state of America. Yet my faith, hope, and love for our merciful God remain. As Christians, we are called to be ever forgiving, always repenting. There is a beautiful scripture: “Ye who is without sin, cast the first stone.” Let’s not overlook the beam in our eye, and pray that this stone-casting against my uncle ceases.
Over 60 years ago, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said that “instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given its colored people a bad check, a check that has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.” But my uncle also said he “refused to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.”
It’s time to redeposit the check. For the sake of our children, is time to refuse to believe that those vaults of opportunity are empty. Although the current policies in Washington are sending bad checks to the Black community once again, we have seen the achievements that can be made when our leaders put America First policies into action.
This month also offers another opportunity to remind ourselves that things don’t have to remain in flux as they currently are. Just a few years ago, we saw the progress that could be made when we return to the policies that work.
This year, it’s time again to demand life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness at the ballot box, and protection for life from the womb to the tomb and beyond. The progress we have already made forms the very core of my uncle’s dream; let’s reignite that spark today. Let’s recommit to compassion, service, and human dignity.
The dream is not dead; it’s a dream we can achieve once again, in every generation, and decade, on every platform—if only we occupy our hearts and minds with prayer; trust God, and demand change from our political leaders in Washington and across the nation.
WRITE THE VISION, MAKE IT PLAIN!
