What is your dream for equality? This is mine

Where there is no vision, the people perish... Proverbs 29:18

Merriam-Webster defines a “dream” as, ‘a series of thoughts, images, or emotions,’ and “vision” as, ‘something seen in a dream, trance, or ecstasy.’

Personally, I have not been much of a dreamer or visionary. Many might suggest that leaders today have no time for dreams, only action. Others still may contend, you can be a dreamer, but don’t live in your bed, according to Amisho “Sho Baraka” Lewis in My Life/Nice Aim.

This year has brought with it a new vigor and personal desire for dreams and visions; desired end-states. Much more than a goal or a resolution, a dream or vision captures the “pie in the sky,” almost an unimaginable achievement or accomplishment.

On Aug. 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., gave the infamous speech now commonly known as, “I Have a Dream.”

This fact remains rather commonly unknown—this dream theme was not the planned content or subject for the speech. In fact, King’s advisors and friends discouraged him from using such language, calling it “cliché.”

Full of line-outs, overwrites and notes in the margins, the intended speech had been revised several times over, written out by hand and also delivered to aides for print. None of it contained an inkling of what King actually spoke about—his dream.

King’s prepared speech lacked much of the “power he so often found,” according to John Lewis, of The Guardian.

Speaking after 15 other people had given speeches, after a day filled with entertainers and activists, King’s speech took a sudden turn when gospel singer and close friend, Mahalia Jackson, shouted from behind him, “tell ‘em about the dream, Martin.” It was here that King began to describe with great detail the black experience in America, the struggle for equality, and a day when, sons of former slaves and slave-owners would be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

Moreover, he dreamt that his 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.”

The significance of this speech to the fight for racial justice and equality in America cannot be overstated.

The significance of a dream is this—without it there’s neither hope nor endurance; in other words, people perish.

As a black American male from Atlanta, Georgia, I have been on the receiving end of several racially-charged events in my life. From being pulled over, thrown to the ground and placed in hand cuffs with guns drawn by police officers to having rocks thrown at me and racial slurs shouted at me while walking down the street with my father. I am no stranger to insult or prejudice. For much of my life, I thought my equality would be found in my achievement, education and individual merit. As the son of parents who attended segregated schools in the Jim Crow South, I believed if I could do more and be more, then I would be seen as an equal.

This idea of meritocracy is not my dream today. Rather, in keeping with King’s theology and belief in the significance and value of every human being, my dream is to labor for each person with whom I come in contact to know their God-given worth and purpose, and to confidently and wholly walk in it. This vision drives me to complete paperwork, challenging deployments, invest deeply in relationships, love sacrificially, and strive to remain humble. If I believed God had no vision for my life, I would not do the things that I do.

What is your dream or vision? What will you do in light of it? And who is standing with you, ensuring you never forget it?

To reference King’s speech in its entirety, visit www.archives.gov/files/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf.