"I may not get there with you"

"I just want to do God's will," Martin Luther King Jr. thundered on the eve of his assassination in Memphis. "And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I've looked over and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land."

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Promised Land" speech, and the country finds itself in the midst of an historical presidential campaign that begs a question: How far have we really come in terms of achieving the civil rights goals Dr. King fought for?

Referring to King's "Promised Land," Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts asks "Are we there yet?"

Clarence Page, a member of the Chicago Tribune's editorial board, leads his op-ed piece on King's legacy with a line ripped from the '08 presidential race between Clinton and Obama: "Words do matter."

On the campaign trail, The Commercial Appeal reports, that Hillary Clinton will visit Memphis Friday "to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in remembrance of the 40th anniversary of his death." A U.K. blogger for The Guardian speculates that Clinton will use the visit as an opportunity to frame the Florida and Michigan debate as a civil rights issue.

CBS is reporting that John McCain also plans to take a break from his bio tour to honor Dr. King in Memphis on Friday.

There's no word yet from the Obama campaign on whether he will make a stop there. But that doesn't mean he won't be front and center in the discussion of Dr. King's legacy. USA Today has published an excerpt from "April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Death and How It Changed America" which focuses on Obama's rise in the shadow of King's legacy.

Bookmark/Search this post with: