As everyone hopefully knows, today is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. It’s a time when our nation pauses to remember Dr. King’s life, his work, and his legacy.

Much time as passed between his passing and today. In those years, lots of historical events and changes have taken place that have shaped the contemporary landscape of American race relations. In this context, allow me to say what Martin Luther King, Jr, Day means to me. Pure and simple, it means that we as a nation still need to work toward achieving true racial equality.

That sounds very simple and basic, but in reality, it can have many different interpretations. For example, for some people, this national holiday means that we should remember and emulate Dr. King’s non-violent techniques of social change. In fact, last year, my family and attended a community event in our town where that message was the centerpiece. However, as I later communicated to the event organizers, although non-violence is a commendable theme, it is not the same as work toward racial equality, which was and still stands as the fundamental mission of Dr. King’s life.

For others, today may mean treating everybody equally, as if we are all the same. I would agree that this is the ultimate ideal, once true racial equality is achieved. But as I’ve told numerous students, colleagues, and friends, this “colorblind” method is not a realistic and feasible strategy right now because different racial groups still experience different levels of access to socioeconomic resources and barriers of discrimination.

In this context, to treat everybody equally right now would be to deny how their different historical legacies have placed them into different contemporary circumstances. Their disparate positions and statues also mean encountering different modes and levels of opportunities. Therefore, until everybody has the exact same opportunities, it would be a disservice to treat everybody as if they were all the same, as if they all had the same histories.

This is what I mean when I say that we must continue to work toward achieving racial equality -- not idly admiring the use of non-violence or immediately trying to be colorblind. Only when we as a nation achieve true racial equality, then will the principles of colorblindness apply. Only then can we unequivocally proclaim, as Dr. King did, “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we’re free at last.”