Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: My Historical Reflections

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history……
-Bro. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Its 1:22 in the morning and I find myself still reflecting on yesterday. Even though it was only twenty-three minutes ago History beckons me – no it forces me to a transcendent moment of expression. Yesterday we honored the 45th Anniversary of “The March on Washington.” (The march, the movement was bigger than King or the “I Have a Dream” speech) Yesterday we celebrated the acceptance of the first African-American to receive and accept the nomination of a major American Political Party. However, today we sit, kneel, and work in a quiet mood solemnity as we pay homage those who were lost in the waters of Katrina and to those who are still displaced from their homes.

I am sitting in between Yesterday and Today and thinking what does all of this mean to me?
As I walked into my apartment it finally struck me of what yesterday and Today all meant to me. On my table in my apartment I have my Bible opened to 126 Psalms. Time to time when it seems like I am under the distress of this world and it seems like the words of Langston Hughes’ “Hold Fast to Dreams” have escaped my mental intellect. I reflect on the v.1 where it says,

“When the lord brought back the captives to Zion we were like men who dreamed.” For those unfamiliar with this text; scholars believed that the author was referring to the period of captivity when the Children of Israel were displaced, disenfranchised, and disbursed in the pagan land of Babylon. However, during that time of captivity – a time of disillusionment with no sense of self all they had to hold onto was their dreams.

They held on to dreams of a better tomorrow, a dream of being somebody, a dream of not being subject to oppression but truly experiencing in its essence – Freedom.

When the Lord brought the captives to Zion they were like men who dreamed.
After 400 years of mental anguish, physical enslavement, and suffering from PTSD – Post Traumatic Slave Disorder

When the Creator brought the captives to the March on Washington they were like men who
dreamed.

In 2000 and 2004 many of people that look like you and I votes were not counted and felt cheated, robbed, and disenfranchised.
When the Most High brought Barack Obama in front of 75,000 plus people of all nationalities, race, creed, sexual orientation, and denomination they were – we were – like men, women, boys and girls who dreamed.

Many of people feel as though now the “dream of the Dreamer” has now become a reality. However my Today brought a sobering reality. Today we mark the 3rd Anniversary of a “city lost in water” and yet it seems we forget that there is still work that has to be done- that must be done. Today in Moncure, NC the Woodworkers Local Lodge W369 – an overwhelming majority Black and Latino – is on week six of a strike because of unfairness on the job. Today our brothers and sisters are still faced with genocide in Darfur. Today to be Black in America still plays to the negative stereotype of that is constantly and consistently portrayed by the media and yes ourselves. Today the dropout of our young brothers is still higher than that of any other race.

We are confronted with so much today that seems like our yesterday is presents us with a false sense of hope and that tomorrow is clouded with suspicions of doubt.

However, I submit that we must be like men who dreamed. We must not let this moment of celebration be deciphered as a moment of Arrival. No we have not arrived. We my brother and sisters are still travelling. Yes we may have left the jurisdiction of Jim Crow and may have crossed into the city limits of Progress but we have yet to arrive.

Be skeptical of the media portraying the point of Arrival just as Dr. King was critical of “tokenism” in his book Why We Can’t Wait.

It is not enough to walk around with Obama on a shirt. It is not enough to have a bumper sticker on your car. It is not enough to update your Facebook status to say that you are down with Obama or that you were a witness to history. It is not enough to be a Democrat or a Republican. It is not enough to think that Sen. Barack Hussein Obama will save us from the turmoil and strife we face in America. It is not enough to simply register people to vote.

We must not be lured into thinking that because Obama is young, gifted, and Black that we should not be critical. It is imperative that we register, educate, organize, and mobilize our brothers and sisters and get them to the polls. No one should tell you a sad story or give you a history lesson how someone fought, bleed, and died but you should vote because it is a primary indicator of a FREE American.

Brothers and sisters it is time to be critical. It is a time to return to the original American dream – the Constitution of the United States of America and know without a shadow of doubt that “we the people” can and will change the world – now that’s a change you can believe in. When we dream of that more perfect Union that promotes the general Welfare of all people than and only then will the America that Mr. Obama so eloquently articulated can and will come into fruition.
Tomorrow we must start anew. We must make a commitment not to become involved in the hype of symbolic politics but back to the basics and knowing that we are the “We the People.”

Forty-five years ago, Dr. King asked the simple question "when will we be satisfied?" We will not be satisfied until our Tomorrow looks nothing like our Today and the dreams of Yesterday be the guide for the future that is ahead of us.

Win or lose on November 5th the work must continue – the fight must go on. Our activism, our thirst for change must not be dependent on who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania but it must be because the strength of our moral intellect will not let us rest until Democracy flows from the chambers of the Congress into the halls of local municipalities. We can not rest until the world as it should be is no longer a talking point in speech but is a reality.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep but we have promises to keep and miles to go before we sleep. The struggle continues and beckons us to wake up!


America, we cannot turn back. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise -- that American promise -- and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess
- Sen. Barack Obama