By Robert L. Woodson Sr.

Sixty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. inspired and exhorted a throng of 250,000 who had gathered on the National Mall for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. A crescendo of his address that day in 1963 was his declaration of his vision that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

True leadership may require one to challenge even one’s followers on issues of principle, even at the risk of alienating them. As he declared, “It is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of high maturity, to rise to the level of self-criticism.” When, in his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” King declared that the biggest stumbling block to Black Americans’ progress was not the White Citizens Council or the Ku Klux Klan but “lukewarm acceptance” by white moderates, critics feared he would alienate white leaders. When King brought the civil rights campaign together with the Peace Movement, he was decried as a communist, and Black “leaders” who focused only on laws and court cases did not support King’s strategy of civil disobedience and passive resistance.

King knew that the crucial foundation for transformation and victory over bigotry and discrimination would be a steadfast commitment to principles of self-determination and personal responsibility within the Black community. In 1968, just one day before his assassination, he declared, “If the Negro is to be free, he must move down to the resources of his own soul and sign with a pen and ink of self-assertive manhood his own emancipation.”

Tragically, throughout the six decades since MLK described his vision, his “Dream” has steadily unraveled. Many of those who suffered most as foot-soldiers in the war for civil rights did not benefit from the victories that were won. When the doors of opportunity were opened, opportunism on the part of many civil rights “leaders” prevented the poor from entering in. In many cases, the conditions of the Black poor deteriorated, while those in positions of leadership prospered. Those who braved the blows of nightsticks and attack dogs were left outside.

Many civil rights leaders and others who could take advantage of new opportunities became elected officials responsible for managing the cities. Over the subsequent decades, $23 trillion flowed into a plethora of programs, of which 70% did not go to the poor but to those who provided services to them. In essence, this amounted to a massive bait-and-switch game, in which the conditions of impoverished Blacks elicited a flood of funding that bypassed “the least of these.” The poor were transformed into a commodity. As journalist Bill Raspberry declared in 1965, “Poor Negroes are not benefiting from the gains of the civil rights movement.”

Even more damaging than opportunists who benefited monetarily were Black “leaders” who devised responses to the problems of discrimination and segregation without consulting those who would be most affected by their dictates. For example, their response to school segregation was not desegregation but forced integration through busing — in spite of the desire of many low-income parents to improve the conditions and quality of schools in their own neighborhoods.

In 1973, Judge W. Arthur Garrity in Boston asked parents in low-come Black neighborhoods what they wanted to improve their children’s education. In a series of town meetings, the parents overwhelmingly voted to strengthen the neighborhood schools. Yet civil rights leaders advised Garrity to integrate the schools of South Boston and bus Black children to white schools, even though they were failing to educate their students. None of those civil rights advocates had their children on those buses.

Government programs stepped in as the source of service provision, undermining the mutually supportive roles that mediating institutions of the family, churches and associations such as the Elks and Shriners once fulfilled in a comprehensively caring community. Marriage and intact families were undercut by proscriptive rules and disincentives of the welfare system, which terminated benefits of single mothers who married.

Yet, today we are witnessing a destruction of the Black community that is even more devastating than counterproductive dictates of the “poverty pentagon” that injured with its helping hand: the ongoing rise of a victimhood mentality promoted by race-grievance merchants who are demanding reparations. They declare that any racial inequalities or failures of Black Americans to achieve are the inevitable impact of a legacy of slavery and Jim Crow laws. They proclaim that “systemic racism” permeates every aspect of the lives of Blacks, and assume that the destiny of Blacks is determined by what white people do or fail to do.

Nothing is more dangerous and devastating than telling youths that they are not responsible for their actions. When young people receive the constant message that they live in a country that hates them, in time they begin to incorporate that message and begin to think they are despised because they are unworthy. They lose a sense of purpose and value for their lives and the lives of others. This hopeless existence may contribute to the senseless loss of life we are witnessing in the rampant Black-on-Black homicides in the streets today.

The most pressing issue is not racism but a moral and spiritual free-fall that is consuming young people of all races and all classes. A lack of meaning and purpose is also claiming lives through prescription drug overdose and suicide, even in high-income communities.

The Woodson Center, which I founded and lead, has identified and supported thousands of committed, grassroots leaders throughout the nation who are serving as community healers. Many have had personal experience with the struggles of those they serve and have earned their trust and response. Their outreach and example have elicited transformations in lives and communities, and their impact is rooted in the values and principles that take us “back to the future.”

They are reviving the moral foundation that enabled Black Americans to thrive and prosper, create profitable businesses, and maintain strong families and civic institutions, at a time when they were confronted with daunting barriers of legalized discrimination and Jim Crow laws. They are leading a movement in which all are judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

Robert L. Woodson Sr. (@BobWoodson) is founder and president of the Woodson Center, the editor of “Red, White, and Black: Rescuing American History From Revisionists and Race Hustlers” and author of “Lessons From the Least of These: The Woodson Principles.”

Read the full op-ed on The Messenger.