Obama's day and Martin Luther King's day

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MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Kosyrev)

Such coincidences are not accidental. Nobody aligned Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 19 with the first Black American President's inauguration on January 20. King symbolized the struggle for Black America's civil rights.

In reality, he was born on January 15, 1929, and died on April 4, 1968. But Americans like to celebrate their holidays and elect their presidents on certain weekdays rather than on the specific dates. When Ronald Reagan decided to sign the holiday into law on November 2, 1983, he chose the third Monday of January, that is, close to the civil rights leader's birthday.

In 2009, America's two Black sons, appeared to be aligned. There is only a one-day difference between King's birthday and Obama's inauguration, which is amazing.

During the election race, Obama meticulously avoided presenting himself as a representative of one race. But when a crowd of 400,000 people gathered near the White House, he focused on Martin Luther King Jr both because of the coincidence, and deliberately. But this subject sounded very different from what could have been expected in the 1960s when King's was in his prime.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll on the eve of the inauguration shows that race remains an issue in the U.S., at least in people's minds. When asked whether racism is a problem, 22% of White respondents said "yes" compared with 44% of Blacks. Asked when equality will be achieved, 38% of Whites said it has already been achieved as compared to 20% of Blacks; 36% of Whites and 38% of Blacks said it will be achieved soon. Asked whether they personally felt race discrimination, 30% of Whites and 74% of Blacks answered in the positive.

To sum up, the picture is very mixed, especially if this poll is compared with a similar one from 1996. It appears that optimism regarding race has become almost twice as strong, among both Whites and Blacks.

In the 1960s, King's son, born in 1958, believed that his father was fighting to enable him to visit a local amusement park like his White friends. In Atlanta and other cities in the south Blacks were not allowed to do this. To say nothing of the park, they could not even vote until 1965. It goes without saying that America has covered a lot of ground since then. Obama's election is the most obvious evidence of this but it is not the only thing.

The White/Black problem is gradually being replaced with new issues. In two or three decades, Latin Americans will prevail in U.S. society. People from all parts of Africa, which Dutch and other merchants brought to the New World's plantations, are much more confident of themselves as being native Americans than people from Central and South America that mostly speak Spanish or Portuguese. Additionally, there are Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipinos, East Europeans... These are also U.S. residents.

Why has Obama started speaking about his race now? He told The Washington Post that he would like his presidency to bridge racial and other gaps. "Race relations become a subset of a larger problem in our society, which is that we have a diverse, complicated society where people have a lot of different viewpoints," he said.

A main point of Obama's inauguration speech, which became known a couple of days before January 20, was justice. This is a very topical subject as December suddenly set an unemployment record. Anyone can be laid off regardless of skin color.

This is a good time to recall who Martin Luther King Jr was and what he was fighting for. His statue, in white stone, stands in Westminster Abbey in London among other "martyrs of the 20th century." It is still not clear who killed him in April 1968. The story seems to be as vague as that of the Kennedy brothers. There is a convict but no conclusive evidence. When a postmortem was carried out after the assassination attempt and an unsuccessful operation in the hospital, it appeared that this 38 year-old reverend had the heart of a 60 year-old. It goes without saying that he was a genius in all respects. At 15 he was in college, at 22 he became a bachelor of divinity, at 26 doctor of philosophy, and at 35 a Nobel Prize winner, the youngest in history. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his non-violent struggle against race segregation and discrimination.

King's political career reached its peak with the march on Washington, and his speech at the Lincoln Monument: "I have a dream." It is considered one of the three most influential speeches in U.S. history.

What was his dream? Did he want American Blacks to live better than Whites, or Whites to live worse than Blacks? Did he want both races to be equal? Martin Luther King wanted a just America for all.

It was clear in the 1960s what race was the hardest hit by a lack of justice. But today, we can understand King better, and interpret his American Dream as one of equal opportunity.

Incidentally, in the last year or two before his death, King fought not so much for Black rights as against poverty for all races, and against the Vietnam War.

This is what Obama is driving at. His proclaimed initiatives are in favor of the poorest part of the working class. This is why he was backed not only by his Black compatriots but also by all those who wish to improve U.S. society, not simply race relations. It is already clear that Obama will consider this his presidency's mission although the outside world may want something else from him, for instance, cessation of U.S. interference in everyone else's affairs.

There are some indicative moments in Obama's biography. His dark skin has nothing to do with American slavery. Obama is the son of a White woman and a Kenyan man who bore no relation to those who toiled on the plantations of the American South. He was brought up in Hawaii, and spent many years in Indonesia. In this sense, he is an offspring of globalization at a time when the one-state-one-nation formula has almost become meaningless. According to the 2000 U.S. census, 6.83 million Americans consider themselves as having two ethnic origins. What about outside America? Take France where the number of North African Muslims is growing with every passing year.

Few people in the world can predict what these changes will bring, and how to approach them. This is why they are looking to the link between Martin Luther King and Barack Hussein Obama with expectation.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

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