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Celebrate birth of Martin Luther King Jr.

My Thoughts

Dr. Bill Atwood

(Updated: Thursday, January 14, 2010, 10:08 AM)

During the time I was in high school the civil rights movement was going strong in the United States. As a teenager growing up in Los Angeles I had a difficult time understanding what blacks endured in the southern sates. I could not understand the concept of segregation because it wasn't as blatant in Southern California as it was in the deep south.

But the segregation was there in many aspects. During the time I was growing up it was fairly easy to identify communities by race and creed. There were the black parts of town, or where the Mexicans lived. There were areas where people who were Jewish lived and the Orientals had their communities.

The white population had much of the rest. Schools in Orange County or the northern end of the San Fernando Valley were certainly a great deal nicer than the schools in South Central Los Angeles.

Social clubs were subject to being restricted by race. Some organizations were blatant about the restrictions and most were covert in keeping some people out. There were judgments made about people based solely on the pigmentation of their skin or their religion.

When living in Compton I had a tough time with much of this as I had friends who were of different races and religions. After we moved to Sun Valley in the San Fernando Valley it was different for a little while.

The Watts riots took place in 1965 and those six days scared many people. I noticed that people in my neighborhood, a good hour from Watts by freeway, were keeping guns handy in their homes. People started talking about the demands the Negroes were making and they did not understand the anger of those involved in the riots.

Now I think many will admit that some or many involved in the rioting were out to just do damage or to steal. The fact remains that the riots flared because of frustration with a system that let a certain segment of the population down.

The black community wanted to share in the American dream and while many would tell them they were entitled to the same dream as everyone else, the ugly secret was that most blacks were unable to capture the American dream because of prejudice and discrimination.

There are two types of discrimination; de jure and defacto. De jure means legally done, as in "white only" and de facto being the standard or customs -- hidden agenda style.

"There are no black people in this club because none have applied or been nominated."

I would hear people talk about blacks in different ways than they talked about white people. When they wanted to praise a black they knew I heard the following: "He's a credit to his race." "They are not on welfare." Of course the insults came with use of the "N" word and statements of being on welfare.

But in all the newspapers and on the television there was this one man who kept preaching about the rights of the Negro in America needing to be guaranteed and honored.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a different sort of black man to many white Americans.

He spoke better than most, was a minister, had a doctorate and reminded his followers that they needed to adhere to the teachings of Gandhi. Nonviolence would be the key.

King felt that if Britain's rules could change in India with peaceful protests that same approach might work here in the United States.

He spoke of overcoming, and he spoke of his "dream" to all who would listen. Some blacks disagreed with his approach as they were tired of waiting.

Some whites steeped in racial hatred just did not want to admit that things were wrong. But many others listened and they couldn't argue with his thinking or words.

This weekend we take time to honor Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth and to celebrate the strides this nation has taken because of his words, "Content of their character and not the color of their skin."