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Liberated Community

Name: Duane M. French
Email: frenchie@gci.net
Date: 22 Sep 1999
Time: 04:04:16

Story

On a couple of occasions I have dreamed of having a conversation with the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I have never shared these dreams with anyone, but they seem to connect with Wade Blank's dream of a "Liberated Community."

I was sitting looking out over the Cook Inlet at "Sleeping Lady" as the sun highlighted what looks to be her hair. "Sleeping Lady" is Mount Susitna, and gained her nickname from an Alaskan Native legend of a beautiful young woman who was heart broken when her young husband went off to war. She lay down to sleep vowing to wake only when there is no more war anywhere on earth. She rests comfortably for what looks to be a very long time.

With the sun shimmering off the water and across her snow-crusted peaks, I glanced at the bench to my right and there sat Dr. King, watching the splendor before us. At first, I thought, "No, it can't be." I looked again and he turned and smiled. I said, "Hi, I'm Duane." He smiled again. Even in the dream my cynical nature took over and I wondered, "Great, I meet a prophet, and even the dead ones are as smug as those self-described prophets of today." He chuckled, and I knew my thoughts were not my own; he heard each one as it entered my mind.

I sat without speaking for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, I said, "I've always wondered what you'd say to us, people with disabilities, if you were alive."

Wanting to prepare the greatest orator of all time with up-to-date facts, I said, "Well, Dr. King, things have changed a lot since…" He laughed and I realized he knew.

"It is a great honor to be brought before you today, by the most unlikely of persons, in the heart and dreams of a white man with a disability. Many may wonder: why not a black man or woman to talk about the civil rights movement that defined my life on this earth? To them I say, he invited me in like no one else has thus far. Others still will wonder, quietly and out loud, why would Dr. King send down words on the disability rights movement when he never spoke much of it while alive? I will speak to that question more as I go on.

"In a speech made during my life on earth, I spoke of the drum major instinct. I will today revise my speech to challenge people with disabilities to pick up the baton and move boldly to the front and be a drum major and lead your people to the promise land. People with disabilities still languish in the corners of American society and find themselves in exile in their own land. Like Americans who are black, people with disabilities have been written a bad check, a check that has been marked with 'insufficient funds'. How often have you heard from the elected leaders of this, the richest nation in the world, that there are insufficient funds to make available the promises of democracy for people with disabilities?

"People with disabilities have not stirred the whirlwinds of discontent to open the eyes and hearts of your fellow Americans so they realize their destiny is tied up with your destiny. All Americans must understand that their freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of all other Americans. including those with disabilities. You must march ahead, and never turn back.

"People with disabilities cannot be satisfied as long as a nursing home is considered a good home for you to live in, while people without disabilities would rather die than exist in one. You can never be satisfied when death, couched in colorful words like assisted suicide, is considered a fate more appealing than life with a disability. You must never rest, until the day people with disabilities are employed at the same rate as other Americans, not unemployed at a rate 12 times greater than white Americans without disabilities.

"Americans with disabilities have slipped deep into a coma of oppression, brought on by the poisonous pill of gradualism. Freedom can never be believed to be ringing, when people with disabilities are the poorest of the poor. Freedom does not ring for those who die long before their time because life became too hard to endure the overwhelming strain of injustice.

"People with disabilities must acquire the desire to be first. The desire to be out front, to be first, but to know always that no drum major ever was known as a drum major without having a loud and joyous band following close behind. The need to feel superior reins still a powerful force in America today. Affirmative action has become a threat to what still too many white men, and now white women, feel is their ordained right to be first. These people fear the table of democracy is too crowded to be accessible to people with disabilities.

"America continues to pervert the drum major instinct and is moving ever closer to the fate of the Roman Empire. You want to be great, you want to first? Well, as Jesus told his disciples, 'I want you to be great, I want you to be first, but you must earn your place on his right or left. I want you to be first in generosity, first in forgiveness, and most importantly, first in love.' Now, from where I am today beyond the mountaintop, I have witnessed within your movement one of the greatest leaders of all time in your hero Justin Dart Jr.

"Mr. Dart is a drum major, leading all people to the promise land by spreading his powerful message of freedom, liberty, and justice for all. Mr. Dart uses love as the most effective tool in his arsenal of hope and democracy. He was born into a life of luxury, a life of wealth and comfort. He could have easily gone about his life without worrying about those with less, those forced into the darkest corners of society. Mr. Dart, though, was filled with the glory of a love more forceful than the forces of one's selfish need for personal wealth and comfort. Mr. Dart has been at the side of thousands of people with disabilities on his journey toward equality for those born without the hope taken for granted by so many Americans. Mr. Dart has been to the mountaintop, and he has seen, and he has showed this great nation a better way.

"When Mr. Dart moves to this great beyond, he and Reverend Blank and I will spend many glorious moments sharing stories of hope and sending forth our collective will for peace on earth. Now, Reverend Blank has told me there will be those people with disabilities who will question why my words should matter to people with disabilities. He has said there are those of you with disabilities, saddled with bitterness and who have turned your oppression and directed it at people from other minorities. Your dream to be free at last parallels the dream of black Americans, and prejudice, discrimination and oppression stem from the fear of people and things thought to be different.

"You will notice I say black Americans, not African Americans. The prejudice and discrimination shoved in the face of black people does not arise from the land from where we were born. It is the result of the color of our skin. It is because we are black and not white. It is because we are seen as different based on the color of our skin. If we had been born white in Africa, we would not feel compelled to call ourselves African American because we would not be cast into the shadows because we are different. Being viewed as different is the tie that binds black Americans with Americans with disabilities.

"I am very familiar with Reverend Blank's dream of a liberated community and know it is possible, if more and more people will open their hearts to the love that abounds in all things different. The need for sameness is the stepchild of fear and insecurity. Every creation born from love has beauty that transcends hatred and hostility. For people with disabilities to achieve Reverend Blank's dream, you must first learn to love yourself and your brothers and sisters with disabilities. Your love for one another must serve as an example for others.

"As you step forward in the role of drum major, remember never to fall in love with being first, or you will leave the band behind you. Ego mixed with power becomes the poison of humanity. Remain forever humble but gracious as you devote your life to leadership for a greater America, a greater world and a universe full of love. I have a dream today, and forever. I have a dream no one can deny from anyone, as long as we all believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all!"

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Name: stynnbovaq
Email: xkvdhm@aoznfw.com
Date: 27 Jun 2008
Time: 14:26:57

Story

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Name: Hannah
Email: anna@london.com
Date: 07 Feb 2008
Time: 05:56:30

Story

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