As we reflect on the legacies of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Minister Malcolm X, it’s impossible not to wonder what they would make of where we stand today. Both men, though ideologically different, shared a deep skepticism in their final years about whether the Black community would truly rise to the occasion after their passing. And while their lives were cut short, their critiques of our internal and external struggles—our hesitancy to unite, our susceptibility to division, and our tendency to settle for symbolic victories over structural change—still echo painfully today.
Where has progress truly spread? Pockets of achievement in entertainment and sports remind the world of our excellence, and a handful of faces in the halls of Wall Street hint at economic strides. But when measured against the breadth of the dream both leaders had, these accomplishments, though significant, feel far too narrow. The hope was not for isolated successes but for a collective advancement—one that transformed communities, not just individuals.
Affirmative action, once a crucial tool for progress, has been rebranded as a crutch. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives are now dismissed as performative gestures by our own people, let alone the institutions they aim to reform. How did we arrive here? Could it be that we, too, have allowed these tools to lose their transformative power by accepting surface-level reforms rather than demanding true systemic change?
Dr. King dreamed of a Beloved Community; Minister Malcolm envisioned Black self-determination. Both men saw empowerment not as mere representation but as the dismantling of structures designed to oppress. Yet here we are, decades later, still wrestling with many of the same questions, only now with the added weight of skepticism—not just from the world but from within.
This is not to diminish the progress we’ve made. It is to challenge us to see the bigger picture. Their disappointment, were they here, would not be rooted in anger but in love—a love that believes we can still rise higher. Their skepticism was not meant to defeat us but to motivate us to prove them wrong. The question now is: will we?