Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: the very best of America

Were Martin Luther King alive in 2023 to celebrate his 94th birthday, what would he have to say about his nation’s contentious racial landscape?

America is a far different place from the nation that saw King felled by an assassin’s bullet in 1968 at the young age of 39.

The United States has seen an African-American serve two terms as president — something King likely thought even his children would never see.

Blacks routinely serve at the top levels of the Cabinet, on the Supreme Court, in the Senate as well as the House, as state governors. Indeed, race is no longer any barrier not just to the ballot box, but to elective office.

Here in New York, Carl Heastie became the first black Assembly speaker in 2015; Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the first black woman state Senate majority leader in 2019. And Brooklyn’s Rep. Hakeem Jeffries is now the first African-American to lead a major party in the US House of Representatives, poised to be the first black speaker.