INDIANAPOLIS — Nearly 53 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the issues he died fighting for are as relevant today as they were in 1968.
"If you think about it. The Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, and 1964 until his death in 1968, we saw some of the worst racial violence in this country. This is exactly what we see with George Floyd and others who were unjustly murder and who lost their lives," Dr. Sean Huddleston said.
Huddleston is the President of Martin University in Indianapolis, a predominantly black institution named after Dr. King, who was killed at 39 years old.
If King were alive today, Huddleston believes the 92 year-old King would in-part be happy to see how far the nation has come: electing the country's first Black president and vice president and to see the leader of King's legendary church, The Rev. Raphael Warnock, elected to represent Georgia in the United State Senate.
Still, Huddleston believes King would say there is much more work to do.
"We've achieved certain aspects of what he dreamed of. But the fact that Black men and women, still have to fear for their lives at times when there are stopped by law enforcement, we have not arrived there yet," Huddleston said. "Quite honestly, I don't think he would be very surprised at the uproar, and the discord and the continued hate that is so overt, and quite frankly, the continued oppression, attempts at inequity, and injustice and inequality that are still alive and well."
Huddleston says disparities prevalent in the 1960s continue to disproportionately impact Black Americans. It's a topic Martin University is focusing on this year by monitoring its graduates to ensure they are successful and treated fairly in the workplace after they are hired. It's the same and final issue Dr. King was fighting for the week he was killed.
"We want to ensure that at some point they'll have an opportunity to be promoted, where they'll have an opportunity to advance in their career and if organizations, businesses, corporations don't have strategies that allow for the progression and are intentional, then it won't happen. So, we want to help them," Huddleston said.
