Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have A Dream” speech is mostly known for the lines: “I have a dream. A dream rooted in the American Dream”. My thought was to place that part of his speech as the opening audio for this video. But while I was listening to his iconic speech, a portion of his speech hit me.

MLK, Jr. cried about dissatisfaction. He said, “We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream." (He was quoting lines from Amos 5:24.) He spoke about voting then. He spoke about seating and use of bathrooms—segregated between whites and blacks. In our day we no longer see that. But I believe that justice is still backed up, it has yet to roll down like waters, and therefore we must not be satisfied.

We cannot be satisfied until black men no longer have to fear for their lives while living their lives. We cannot be satisfied until every man and woman are equal in the eyes of the law: that our shade of color does not make one guilty or more innocent than the other. We cannot be satisfied until white America see the divide of privilege afforded to them not by their intellect or their sagacity, but by their color and nothing else. We cannot be satisfied until we see black children who are selling lemonade not have white neighbors call law enforcement to have them stop. We cannot be satisfied until local municipalities no longer hide racist murderers because they’re white and their victim is black. We can not be satisfied—not in 1963, not in 1930s or 2020. Not now, not ever until justice flows like a river and righteousness like a stream.

I called my dear friend Debra today and invited her to be part of the panel for my Unpacking Series (on Monday, May 11, 2020). I told her we will be dealing with injustice and race. I had spoken earlier to other black leaders to come and take part, so I called Debra so she can give a female voice to the conversation. She lives in Georgia. She was well aware of Ahmaud’s bigoted killing before it even became “news”. She was more than willing to come on to lend her voice.

She told me the municipality over there was hoping that the Coronavirus conversation would wash the whole story out of the limelight, so she prayed. She prayed that the world would know about Ahmaud and that justice will prevail. She was glad her prayers were answered, “Because,” she said, “Pastor J, Georgia is the birth place of the Klan and Ahmaud most likely thought that the men that killed him were going to kill him because he most likely thought they were klansmen.”

Debra then opened the back door to me and let me in on something I have never heard before.

She asked, “Do you know Billie Holiday and her song ‘Strange Fruit’?” “I’ve heard of Billie Holiday, but not that song,” I answered. “I want you to hear it,” she said, “but not only hear it, I want you to read the lyrics.”

I’m not going to lessen the impact of listening to that song and reading the lyrics for you, my reader, if you’ve never heard it or read it before. But find it. Hear it. Read it. No, they’re no longer hanging strange fruits from poplar trees, that’d be too obvious. They’re now calling it self defense.

NOTE: Written May 8, 2020.