‘I Have a Dream’ + 60: Dr. King would be proud of America’s progress

When Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial 60 years ago Monday, facing the building where I currently serve, he described his hope that his nation would continue its promise toward becoming a more perfect union.

America is achieving Dr. King’s dream — despite the claims of the radical Left. Our progress is palpable, even if it conflicts with some people’s politically motivated narratives.

When King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, America faced a dark moment of hatred and division in our history.

The fight for equality was being met with violent opposition.

That same year, in my home state of South Carolina, college students protested the integration of our universities on the steps of the state Capitol.

Instead of resigning himself to the idea we were hopeless, he had hope that America would meet the challenge.

Dr. King believed then what some doubt now — that if you have faith in God, faith in each other, and faith in our nation’s future, all things are possible.

America is meeting the challenge, and Dr. King’s dream is being fulfilled.

I know we are achieving that dream because I’m living it. I am living proof America is the land of opportunity, not a land of oppression.

This isn’t just my story. It’s all our stories.

My grandfather went from picking cotton to watching his grandson pick out his seat in Congress in his lifetime. If that’s not progress, I don’t know what is.

These achievements are no longer the outliers — they are the stories of millions of Americans.

Yesterday, stories like ours were the exceptions. Today, they can be the rule for anyone willing to work hard for his or her piece of the American Dream.

Unfortunately, the radical Left is seeking to first deny and then reverse our progress in achieving Dr. King’s dream.

In pursuit of their ends, teachers' unions are the ones standing in the schoolhouse door today, blocking poor kids from having the same opportunities as rich kids.

This is why I’ve committed to breaking the backs of the teachers’ unions so they can’t lock our kids out anymore and they can’t indoctrinate our kids anymore.

Despite teachers' unions fighting tooth and nail against nationwide school choice, I know you can go as high as your character, your grit, and your talent will take you.

Every kid in every ZIP code deserves a quality education.

To say there isn’t work to be done would not be an argument made in good faith.

But that’s what the pursuit of maintaining the American Dream is all about.

It means crafting that more perfect union for those who come after us.

It’s working so that the American Dream of the next generation pales in comparison to ours — as Dr. King dreamed.

We can’t cancel our history, no matter how painful it may have been.

Instead, we should learn from our past so that we may be the great protectors of our future.

When we ignore or downplay the history of men like my granddaddy and the progress his family made, we erase the progress we’ve made as a nation.

While those on the left, like the authors of the 1619 Project, dwell on our original sin as a nation, they fail to showcase the redemption that has followed.

I believe Dr. King would be proud to bear witness to the gains we have made.

He would encourage us to maintain the path to progress with the same hopeful optimism — keeping in mind that whatever we seek to achieve can only be done with faith in America.

As I reflect on his dream 60 years on, it gives me great hope for what the next 60 years will look like in this country if we protect the rungs of the ladder that helped so many climb.

If we invoke that same hope, determination, and optimism Dr. King and my grandfather possessed, our potential is limitless.