In a 1964 interview recently found in the archives of the BBC, the late Martin Luther King Jr. predicted that there would be a black president in 25 to 40 years.
Forty-five years later, the day before Barack Obama was sworn as president of the United States, people around the country remembered the slain Dr. King with national and local tributes.
A comparison of Obama and King was made at the 24th Annual Sabbath Service honoring King’s memory at Temple Beth-El in Jersey City on Jan. 16.
The featured speaker was Dr. Robert L. Johnson, MD, Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, where he is also a dean and director. The theme for Johnson’s talk was “Have We Overcome? – A Critique of Post-Racial America,” where he explored how, even with Obama coming into the White House, the issue of race has not lost any relevance.
King for a night
Johnson started off his speech looking back at Election Day.
“I had my first ‘Obama moment’ on November 4 as I watched TV and felt something inside well up and had tears in my eyes,” Johnson said.
Johnson then remembered the comments made by controversial affirmative action opponent Ward Connerly about three things that would have to happen to signify that race relations in America had progressed: if white people no longer objected their daughters marrying black men; if a white man would say he is willing to walk in a black man’s shoes, and if a black president was elected.
Johnson then quoted King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, the one he gave the day before his death on Apr. 4, 1968, as well as other iconic speeches King gave during his life.
Johnson spoke of how King would have appreciated the sight of the former gang members whom Johnson has encountered in the past year becoming more aware and more focused on reading newspapers and learning more about the political process due to Obama’s visibility and success.