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“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season’. Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. -Martin Luther King, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” January 19, 2008 It seems that we often see the end result of social change yet do not see what it took to get there. I am of the persuasion that we often do not see what it took to get there mainly because we often do not look. Oh how some of our people go on about FDR and how good he was to us negro folk. Even the president speaks of FDR with much admiration and that's okay, too. However, where is the mention of A. Phillip Randolph? He was instrumental in helping to mobilize the African American community and his threat to mount a protest rally in Washington in 1941 was major in terms of getting FDR (Foot Dragging Roosevelt) to stop slow footing on addressing discrimination in defense industries? A. Phillip Randolph's threat to mount this protest rally was instrumental in inducing the Roosevelt Administration to issue the executive order than barred discrimination in defense industries and appointing the first Fair Employment Practice Commission. (This has, by the way, benefitted many people of America, not just African Americans.) If it were not for the African American community pointing out the hypocrisy of fighting a war in the name of democracy abroad while racism was being practiced domestically and standing up for themselves, it is very possible that black people would have merely had chicken broth in the pot while their white counterparts had their chicken. "Many drops make a river."

While "going on and on" about MLK, you neglected to mention that it was A. Phillip Randolph who organized the 1963 March on Washington, which was originally a demonstration for "jobs and freedom", not a showcase for King's oratorical skills.