Martin Luther King, Jr. named three sins of our nation that were intrinsically complicit in fueling a pre-civil rights America: militarism, racism and materialism. That was a long time ago, and many believe we are living in a failed post-civil rights America. Few would argue that a country where the life expectancy of an African American male is less than the average Sri Lankan fails to meet the description of King’s “dream.”
In post-civil rights America, we are wading through the murky waters of these same three sins MLK named for us, and they are being realized in three symbols: the war, the wall and the well.