“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., like all great visionaries, is remembered not so much for his courage, his determination, and his ability to inspire and lead, but ultimately, for the power of the ideas and things he created – or perhaps, more to the point – illuminated — that continue to outlive him. King is forever linked in a pantheon of visionary leaders like Moses, Ghandi, Bolivar, who took us to the promised land, but didn’t make it themselves. The fact that they didn’t arrive at the destinations that beckoned them, though sad, was somehow right. In a world of opponents and at the very least, naysayers, it was proof that the power of their ideas could survive without them. King knew that. On April 3, 1968, just one day before his death, he gave his famous “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech, telling his followers “I’ve seen the promised land,”  and concluded, prophetically, saying “I may not get there with you.”

In the darkest days of the Civil Rights era, militant racists sought to destroy the movement. Their tactic was terror. Leaders and footsoldiers in the battle for equality were assassinated.  Children were sacrificed, because of the color of their skin. Those who marched, and risked their lives, created a new chapter in American history. It was written with the blood of the Civil Rights Martyrs.

It was a time of reckoning for America. By most accounts, it was a war.  The stakes were nothing less than Freedom. In the summer of 1999, I made a documentary about the Civil Rights Movement, traveling across America, walking in the footsteps of those selfless men and women, who marched, spoke, organized and paved the way for equality and freedom — sometimes at the cost of their own lives. I traveled to Chicago and met up with Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was with Dr. King when he was cut down. “Those who died in domestic wars, not just foreign wars, they made America better,” he said.

In Montgomery, Alabama, the city where Dr. King had his church, I interviewed Morris Dees, Co-founder and Chief Trial Counsel of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who said, “The Civil Rights Movement was really a struggle to ensure that America live up to its promises of equality, written in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”

On one side stood those who sought to abolish a century’s old, state-sanctioned system of segregation. I spoke to Rep. John Lewis, U.S. Congressman for Georgia, who marched and was beaten in the infamous “Bloody Sunday” march across the Pettus Bridge to Selma, Alabama. “These people literally put their bodies on the line, to make our country something better. Many of these young people went into the lion’s den. It was very dangerous.”

They clashed with an army of white supremacists desperately clinging to the last vestiges of their belief in white superiority. As in any war, there were casualties. But in this case, on only one side of the battlefield.

“We must never forget,” said Rep. Lewis, “that in our own country, in a short period of time, many of our citizens gave their lives, in another war, in another battle. And these people, these martyrs, didn’t receive any honors or medals. But they were fighting in a war, just as important as any war our country has engaged in abroad.”

As the death toll rose, the oppressed cried out for justice. But the brutality did not destroy the movement’s resolve. It only stoked the fires of freedom.

“Every time the blood of the innocent was spilled,” Rev. Jackson said, “every time a (civil rights) worker was martyred, it exploded interest in our struggle.

On April 4, 1968, a shot rang out in the Memphis night. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the leader of the Civil Rights Movement, was assassinated, as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. The bullet that entered his face and exited his back made King a martyr. A life of flesh and blood, that had taken on mythic proportions, had come to an end.

But while King was the conscience and epicenter of the movement, there were other martyrs to its cause. Men and women who died in defiance. Children who died in innocence. Today, we remember, not just King, but everyone who sacrificed their lives for something many of us in America take for granted today.  Medgar Evers, who preceded King as the first leader of the movement and was assassinated, Viola Liuzzo, the Detroit housewife who drove down to Alabama to march from Selma to Montgomery, and was murdered when racists saw her giving a ride to an African-American who’d been in the march, Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, Carol Robertson — the four little girls killed in the bomb blast of the 17^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, Rev. James Reeb, Jimmy Lee Jackson, Vernon Dahmer – all killed by the Ku Klux Clan for their participation in the movement, and Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, the three Civil Rights workers who lost their lives when Neshoba County (Miss.) deputy sheriff Cecil Price held them until members of Ku Klux Klan arrived and murdered them in cold blood.

“Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground. Mother earth will swallow you. Lay your body down,” sang Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young in 1974.

Sadly, hauntingly, it still rings true today. Let us never forget.

When you enter the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, and are about to enter the tour, you have a choice of doors. One is marked “Prejudiced.” The other door is marked “Unprejudiced.” But the second door, if one checks, is locked. The point of this is to immediately get you in touch with your own inner bigot. In truth, we all harbor prejudice, to one degree or another. And no matter how nice a person we think we are, we’re fooling ourselves if we think otherwise.

So when Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, admitted – admitted! – to authors of a book about the last presidential election, that he had thought Barack Obama was a viable candidate, because he was “light-skinned” and had “no Negro dialect,” he wasn’t referring to his own prejudice. He was referring to the prejudice that all of us have. He was saying that if a black man were going to be president, he would have to be someone who was less black – someone who wouldn’t activate the latent bigotry inherent in white America. (He wasn’t concerned with blatant bigots or racists, as they would have never voted for a black man in the first place.)

Interestingly, Senator Joe Biden, made similar comments, with the same reasoning, early on in the campaign. Mr. Obama understood the context of his remarks, and chose him as his Vice Presidential running mate.

Here’s another wrinkle on the black and white issue. Two years ago, when the light-skinned, non-Negro dialected Mr. Obama was eager to gain the votes of blacks, it was not uncommon for him to alter his dialect and mannerisms, depending upon whether he was addressing black audiences in South Carolina, or white audiences in New Hampshire. He understood that a certain kind of reverse bigotry was inherent in blacks, and needed to convince them that he was one of them.

And now, the Republicans calling for Senator Reid’s removal as majority leader are clearly engaged in playing politics. They point to the fact that the Democrats dethroned Sen. Trent Lott for a similar peccadillo.  The difference is, Mr. Lott said that Sen. Strom Thurmond, who was an avowed segregationist for much of his career, would have made a great president. In other words, he was praising a man who was an acknowledged bigot. A man who would have divided America even further. Given those circumstances, Mr. Lott’s fall from grace was justified.

Mr. Reid is no more bigot than you or I. He simply pointed out that we have a long way to go towards becoming colorblind. President Obama understands that. And that’s the reason he correctly accepted his apology.

So think about it. Are you ready to acknowledge your own inner bigot? Sen. Harry Reid is no more bigoted than you or I. Recognizing the prejudices we all have, great or small, is a first step in the right direction.

It isn’t subtle at all. Since Barack Obama has been elected president, the right has infused political debates, not with substance or facts, but instead with lies and worse — has co-opted the icons, themes and imagery of the Nazis and the Holocaust. It’s one thing to oppose Obama’s push toward a comprehensive healthcare bill — that was fully expected of the losing and sore-loser party — but to accuse him of being a monster because of his agenda is quite another. Signs at rallies have depicted Obama as a Nazi brownshirt; they have shown photos of Hitler, Stalin and Castro, adding them up with plus signs. The equal sign leads to none other than Obama. Not just stupid, because Hitler and Stalin were megalomaniacs, mass murderers and psychotic, none of which applies to President Obama. But downright shameless and meanspirited. Another sign depicted the notion of the “Death Panels,” a phrase and concept coined by Sarah Palin. Obamacare, which is what the right calls Obama’s Healthcare push, is termed as “The Final Solution.” Again, co-opting the language of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust. Another sign that was flat out racist, depicted a Lion and Obama. The copy: “An African Lion is ok. But not a Lyin’ African.” Offended? If we are not, we are part of the problem. Worse, the Republican Senators and Congressmen at the events where signs like these are displayed, say nothing about them, and thus give their tacit approval. It is shocking that the people who not only oppose a national healthcare program, but will lie and spread those lies, are conisidered by some to be heroes. Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, who infamously shouted out “You Lie” when the President addressed congress, is now considered a hero by the right, and quickly raised $200,000 in campaign contributions. Incidentally, the signholders are obviously in the dark that their heroes’ campaigns are bought and paid for the health insurance companies, who are terrified by “Obamacare.” Another rightwing hero –  rabid commentator Glen Beck. He regularly spouts conspiracy theories and calls Obama a racist. Welcome to the re-emergence of the power of “The Big Lie.” And behold the Republican party born anew. A lack of tolerance at the very least. Promoting hatred and racism at its worst.