Dr. King's Dream In 2018

Sioux Falls, SD

Ahead of Monday's holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., KELOLAND News held a round table with with several local African American leaders.  We asked how King's dream translates to 2018.

Dan Santella: Have we made steps to improve the realization of Dr. King's dream that he shared with the world on the steps of the Lincoln memorial in DC. How are we doing with fulfilling his goal in South Dakota in 2018?

"I think first you have to know where his goal ended," Derrick Robinson, assistant professor at the University of South Dakota said. "At the close of Dr. King's life was the work on the poor people's campaign. To begin to understand that there were marginalized people in this society, and if we're not working on lifting up the marginalized people in the society, then society's always going to be slow, because a society as a whole can only move as fast as its slowest caboose. So in working on the poor people's campaign, he was working on equity, he was working on balance. He was working on empowerment and capacity building."

Santella: Since the civil rights era to now in South Dakota, where have we improved?

"I think we have improved as far as being more inclusive and allowing people to sit at the table, so called, but what are we doing when people actually have the seat at the table," Julian Beaudion, trooper with the South Dakota Highway Patrol, said. "Are we really allowing them the opportunity to make a difference. Sure you might give them an opportunity to speak, but are we giving them the same opportunity as our counterpart to make the same difference, to make the same type of impact."

"Once upon a time in the time of Dr. King, if you loved someone of color, if you supported someone of color, you were likely to have some semblance of their experience," Vaney Hariri, co-founder of Think 3D, said. "You could lose your business, you could lose your social standing, you could lose your life." 

"We're not where we need to be, obviously," Mark Blackburn of Augustana University said. "We've took some steps forward by making some small gains in terms of a little bit of access, little opportunities for minorities and people of color to do some different things, but we're still not where we need to be." 

To see more of this interview, you can watch our Hidden History special that airs this Saturday at 6:30 p.m. central time on MyUTV.  You can also catch it on Sunday on MyUTV and the Black Hills CW. 



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