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Seattle Times: MLK's Promised Land - Are We There Yet?

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Promised Land: Are we there yet?

Leonard Pitts Jr. / Syndicated columnist

"I may not get there with you."
- Martin Luther King Jr., April 3, 1968

A few words about the Mountaintop and the Promised Land.

On the last night of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. famously told an audience in Memphis that he had stood on the one and seen the other. He did not define the Promised Land, but he did not need to. That audience of striking sanitation workers and their supporters, those long-suffering women and men who erupted in cries and shouts, already knew.

The Promised Land was where you did not have to march for your dignity. It was where you did not have to sing for your freedom. It was where there was no need for speeches to verify your humanity. The Promised Land was that sacred place where all of God's children would stand as equals on level, fertile ground.

Friday marks 40 years since Martin Luther King was assassinated. And the search for that promised land has shrunken until it fits inside an old riddle, the one that asks whether the glass is half empty or half full.

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