Forty-five years after Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr, gave his famous I Have a Dream Speech, Barack Obama #44  became the first black PRESIDENT of the United States! Twelve years after that, Senator Kamala Harris is poised to become the first black female Vice President of the United States! It’s taken fifty-two years since Martin Luther’s Mountain Top Speech for Senator Harris, an African American woman, who, however, is also a South Asian-American, to have an opportunity to run for the Vice Presidency.

Martin Luther didn’t get the opportunity to see in the flesh “The Promise Land” for the people of the US, but he knew that it was coming and he would have to fight for it! In peaceful demonstrations, speeches and arrests, he and the rest of the civil rights leaders endured hardship by fire hose, police dogs as well as baton just so that the young people of color today might have a fighting chance to succeed in this life and to be treated with an element of respect and dignity!

This year 2020 is being touted as the year of the black women, and it’s a long time coming! And many have paid the price, we should not forget Emmeline Pankhurst as well and the rest of the Suffragette’s, who paved the way for women’s right to vote! Women’s Suffrage, or the peaceful activists that are paying the price in our current Black Lives Movement! Even though there has been many victories as of late. We have seen Confederate monuments taken down and Rebel Flags flying at half mast, but there’s still more work to be done.

The 2020 election is coming fast upon us and we need to live in the moment. We can’t afford to let the celebrations of past battles to distract us from the concerted effort at hand, but let it drive us forward with confidence to do all we can, to ensure a fair election despite the voter suppression, that is still being practiced on the part of the Republicans Party, to the shame of our Country and the conscience of our great land. We can move beyond these obstacles and celebrate on Nov,3rd with a decisive victory, that we can all enjoy. Not just the few, but the majority!