American Freedom, Check the Mirror: Do You Like What You See?

This past weekend would have marked Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 77th birthday.

So on Monday, when the first black female mayor of a major southern city, Mayor Shirley Franklin of Atlanta, asked us to "comprehend the full message of Dr. King," I could almost hear the late preacher's battle cry. King was almost present.

But what does comprehending the full message of Dr. King actually entail?

For many, our knee jerk memories tell us that King's mission was purely civil rights - securing the right to vote, bringing down the walls of segregation, and protecting those essential freedoms of speech and assembly. These memories are not wrong; they are also not complete.

King said of himself, "I'm much more than a civil rights leader." And he expressed this sentiment in his American Dream speech, when he orated, "we must join the war against poverty and believe in the dignity of all work...Give somebody a job and pay them some money so they can live and educate their children and buy a home and have the basic necessities of life."

What Dr. King was getting at in 1965, was that political rights, while indispensable to freedom, are aspects of a larger set of requisite, interconnected freedoms that individuals must posses in order to be truly free. He understood that civil rights victories would mean little for Americans who live without education, healthcare, social opportunity, employment or personal security.

This is an argument often heard today within the closed-off circles of academics, but rarely in the halls of Congress. It is an argument for expanding the very definition of what constitutes freedom in America.

A bold argument, for sure, but pretend for a moment you are a black five-year-old living in Harlem. You have no health insurance. And, put aside hopes for college and a good paying job for a moment. Guess what your chances are at making it past age forty?

They're not so good. As Amartya Sen illuminates in his 1998 book, Development as Freedom, men have a better chance of living beyond forty in third world nations like Bangladesh than do black men from your neighborhood.

Now ask yourself this question: as a black five-year-old growing up in Harlem, did you control the circumstances into which you were born? You did not.

As you did not control these circumstances, do you not deserve the Declaration of Independence's inalienable right to life any less than the white five-year-old who lives eighty blocks south on Central Park West?

So what does it say of a nation that does not provide health insurance to 11.4 percent of its children? What does it say of a nation, according to a 2005 Education Trust study, that spends about $900 less per pupil, per year on students educated in our nation's poorest school districts than those educated in the wealthiest?

It says that this nation is willing to deny you, the black five-year-old from Harlem, the very essence of what it is to be an American; it is willing to deny you what it is to be free.

Those who object to this expanded idea of American freedom may well point out that "the Constitution and Bill of Rights guarantee nothing of the kind to the American people." I agree. But could the Framers have dreamed of providing healthcare, economic opportunity and a solid education to all American citizens?

Of course not. But times have changed and it doesn't have to be that way any more. Our leaders in 2006 can and should dream new and different dreams from those of our leaders in 1776.

Today, and much more than at the time of this nation's birth, America has a chance to make good on its declaration that all men are created equal. Dr. King saw this potential in 1965 when he spoke of "the basic necessities of life" and the writing on the wall remains today. The only question that remains is, what does American freedom mean to you?