Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr. - 40 Years Later

Why We Remember Dr. King

Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed of a world of equality for all. Looking back, forty years after his assassination, it is wonder how different the world is today - yet, in so many ways, still the same.

People wonder how the issue of segregation, which King so virtuously fought against, could even be considered controversial. We understand that racism then was far more prevalent, and far less subtle, than it is today. But, even so, how could people not see that the practice was so obviously wrong?

The answer might prove shocking. Simply put, most people never really thought about it.

How could an issue so big as that one go unnoticed by so many people for so long?

The answer to that can be seen right under every one of our noses. In a very real way, segregation still exists, utterly unchallenged, today, in a strikingly similar form. It isn't a practice of racial discrimination that our society has become oblivious to, but a sexual one. It is the elephant caving in the roof, and very few of us even know it's there.

There is a nearly universal segregation in our country that runs along gender lines. Everywhere we go, there are "separate but equal" facilities for men and women, running the gamut from bathrooms to locker rooms to those little closets in department stores where you get to try on clothes. Even many schools, to this day, are for men only or women only.

Now, racial segregation was a much more vicious beast, and no one should get the idea that it was no big deal, like "merely" having to use a toilette with a certain kind of symbol on it. But, by looking at today's gender-based segregation, we can get something of a sense for what the people four decades ago were thinking - or, rather, weren't thinking - about racial segregation.

How often does the fact that men and women have separate facilities cross your mind? It was much the same with black and white facilities back then. It simply was the way things were, and not many people paid it any mind at all.

What reasons, really, do we have for having separate bathrooms? Are we so childish that we don't want to catch cooties from a toilette seat that a member of the opposite sex might have sat on?