Relevance of Martin Luther King's August 28, 1963 'I Have a Dream' speech to my past as disabled jobseeker

It is now 21 August 2019. August 28, 2019 will be the 66th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at which "Revd Dr Martin Luther King" [as he was announced] delivered his 'I Have a Dream Today' speech that was substantially more than a 'soundbite hook'.

I first heard that speech in full on a long playing disc of March on Washington speeches. (I should also admire that in my 15th year King was a hero of mine while I had African-Caribbean friends at school and also experienced 'outsider' treatment after being 'outed' as a disabled person.) I was in my mid-20s in 1977/78 at a very vulnerable time for me, in a prelude to further disappointments for me as a disabled jobseeker. In February 1977 I had left four-and-a-half years employment in a Research & Development, Foods Laboratory in which I had been subjected to scapegoating on account of the slowness related to my disability, and sought refuge in an office job with the same conglomerate employer in Birmingham, England. That "deliverance did not deliver" as I was still too slow for the workflow, and the title of Statistics and Admin Clerk was not a true reflection of the invoice passing and double-entry bookkeeping duties.

I left that job in October 1977 on health grounds, and left Birmingham for my mum's post-1976 residence of Sidford, Sidmouth, Devon, awaiting real vocational assessment and a training place that was also to prove a huge disappointment. My subsequent experience has taught me that insufficiently funded assessment and training opportunities induced feelings related to the punishment meted out to the cruel Greek king Sisyphus.Each training period proved too short for me to acquire a successful outcome, leading me back to the dole queue and then to more such 'training opportunities' each time.

In Greek mythology Sisyphus or Sisyphos was the king of Ephyra. He was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll down when it nears the top, repeating this action for eternity. Wikipedia

Except that I had no idea what wickedness I was being punished for. (My current computing skills were developed mainly through my mum having bought me a PC and funding for training manuals in 1998, and my subsequent years of application.)

Yet the Martin Luther King speech gave me immense spiritual fodder for the rest of my life that I internalised even after the person I loaned that record to lost it around year 2001.

After I had drawn my campaigning friend Revd Paul Nicolson's attention to that speech a few years ago, he attempted to get it debated in the UK Parliament, but did not get enough petition backers. We both felt that King's "challenge to the authorities ["We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation."] was worthy of debate against the post-2010 watchword of 'austerity' as state benefits were savaged.

Now, I offer my blog's readers a link to an incisive intro to King's refusal to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of a nation.

http://quotesnack.com/martin-luther-king/we-refuse-to-believe-that-there-are-insufficient-funds-in-the-great-vaults-of-opportunity-of-this-nation-martin-luther-king-jr/

I also note that it can be said that the sentence meted out to Sisyphus has been echoed in the tale of American black 'steel driving man' song subject John Henry.



That song was related to the superhuman feats that oppressed people might be induced to make in response to the face of technological advances that threaten their employment prospectus whn that employment prospectus is what they gain a sense of personal worthiness and identity from and the State and employer are only interested in the cheapest solutions.