So it is worth everyone's while to step back and take a look at what MLK and the civil rights movement really stood for. Especially in light of the fight we are in over in Iraq. If you think there is no comparison read this from Opinion Journal - Dr. King and I:
Until that night, the only history I knew of America was a skewed tale of unchallenged dominance of the white race, first over Native Americans, then over the African slaves. On the news, after the siege of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, we had heard that the African-American staff was given the chance to leave, because they, too, had been "oppressed by the Great Satan." On TV, we watched reruns of documentaries on the KKK. A Tehran street was renamed after the Congolese leader Lumumba, assassinated by the CIA! As for American black leaders, Malcolm X was the man we knew best: a martyr!Read the whole thing, downright inspiring.
I lay still, watching, as my smug confidence dissipated before my eyes. Discovering the gaps in my knowledge had disarmed me: There was a man I knew nothing about, who was black as black could be, and had ultimately succeeded.