Has Dr. King’s dream been realized? Not completely

Omaha World-Herald columnist and longtime educator Janice Gilmore was the featured speaker at the Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration event held on Monday. The event was sponsored by UNMC and the Nebraska Medical Center.

Gilmore, an Omaha native and a graduate of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, received a standing ovation for her keynote speech titled, “Has King’s Dream Been Realized?”

When Janice Gilmore learned that Barack Obama planned to run for president, she and her husband, Alvin, thought to themselves, “Yeah, right.”

“We knew he had what it took, but we didn’t believe America could ever elect an African-American president,” said Gilmore, who delivered the keynote speech — titled “Has King’s Dream Been Realized?” — for the Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration event held on Monday. The event was sponsored by UNMC and the Nebraska Medical Center.

Gilmore, a former educator and Omaha World-Herald columnist, had reason to be skeptical. She grew up in an era when the only book her teacher read to the class that featured a minority character was “Little Black Sambo,” a children’s book rife with racist overtones.

She was raised in a time that whenever a black person appeared on television, the whole family would run to catch a glimpse of the “colored on TV.” She remembers when blacks could only go to a local ice skating rink on Wednesday nights.

“As I talk about Martin Luther King Jr. today, I want you to see with my eyes and get into my skin and feel what I felt,” she told the crowd of 350 who turned out to the Sorrell Center’s Truhlsen Events Center. “When Martin Luther King, Jr. finally came about, African-Americans truly had somebody to be proud of, which is why it was such a crushing blow when he was assassinated in 1968.”

Gilmore noted that because the American people elected a black person president, many believe racial strife in the United States is over. She pointed out statistics that counter such opinions.

“We’ve made great strides and we’re headed in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go.” Janice Gilmore

“Yes, America has come a long way, but we haven’t realized Martin Luther King’s dream completely,” she said. “One-third of African-American children still live in poverty, two-thirds grow up without both parents, half of black men in their twenties are jobless and racial profiling, police brutality and discriminatory hiring practices still exist.”

Despite those daunting numbers, Gilmore identified herself as part of the 58 percent of Americans who believe race relations will eventually be “worked out.”

“We’ve made great strides and we’re headed in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go,” she said.

Her speech was followed by comments from audience members, including.

• Tina Flores, M.D. assistant professor in the department of family medicine, who shared an inspirational e-mail she received recently. It read, “Rosa sat so that Martin could walk. Martin walked so that Obama could run. Obama ran so that kids can fly.”
  
• Rick Spellman, general counsel in UNMC Business and Finance, who shared that he was in the front row on Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and remembers the Lincoln Memorial in the background. He cited the similarities between that day and Obama’s inauguration speech that will be held today in the same location.
  
• Another person who told of being read “Little Black Sambo” as a child, but said she read the revised version of the book, called “Sam and the Tigers,” to her grandchildren. The revised book casts Sam as a hero.