by Marian Wright Edelman, NNPA Columnist
On November 13, a historic event took place on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on a plot of land near the national memorials to Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt: the groundbreaking ceremony for the memorial honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Like many other Americans, I am overjoyed that our nation is honoring Dr. King this way. On the hallowed ground surrounded by memorials to soldiers and leaders of wars, it is especially moving to see the first memorial to a leader who preached and practiced nonviolence and peace.

But even as we celebrate the enormously important symbolism of building a memorial to Dr. King in this special place, this monument should also serve as a powerful reminder that there is still much more left for our nation to do to honor him and his teachings that can’t be accomplished with a statue or words carved in stone.

In his remarks at the groundbreaking ceremony, President Bush said building this memorial to Dr. King alongside the memorials to the many other Americans honored on the Mall "will unite the men who declared the promise of America and defended the promise of America with the man who redeemed the promise of America."

Dr. King may have redeemed the promise of America. But has America redeemed the promise of Dr. King?

When most Americans think of Dr. King’s speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, they only know the famous "I Have a Dream" section. For four decades, the powerful words in that part have been quoted all over the world.

But too few people remember or even know about the central theme that begins the speech: the bounced check America had written to its Black citizens.

Dr. King said we had come to the nation’s capital that day to cash a check America had written nearly 200 years earlier.

He said that when our nation’s founders wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, they had created a promissory note that guaranteed all Americans the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

But instead of honoring that promise for Black Americans, America had defaulted on it and given us a bad check that had come back marked "insufficient funds."

Dr. King said those of us who had come to the March were there to cash our checks because we refused to believe "the bank of justice is bankrupt" or that "there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation."

I sure still refuse to believe it, and never will until America’s promised commitment to justice and our great wealth converge in ending poverty and hopelessness for millions of people struggling to get enough to eat, a place to sleep, a chance to make a living, and a good education for their children.

Right now too many American children and families are still getting bounced checks from our economic, health, education, and housing banks.

It is intolerable that more than forty years after Dr. King dreamed of a day when his own children would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, the gap between rich and poor is widening and huge disparities of opportunity persist for Black children.

Dr. King’s warnings that "returning violence for violence multiplies violence" and "a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death" speak to us more loudly today than ever.

It’s hard not to think of the words written about Dr. King by Carl Wendell Hines:

Now that he is safely dead

Let us praise him

build monuments to his glory

sing hosannas to his name.

Dead men make

such convenient heroes: They

cannot rise

to challenge the images

we would fashion

from their lives.

And besides,

it is easier to build monuments

than to make a better world.

So, now that he is safely dead

we, with eased consciences

will teach our children

that he is a great man...knowing

that the cause for which he lived

is still a cause

and the dream for which he died

is still a dream,

a dead man’s dream.

Those who helped lay the groundwork for this memorial to Dr. King know that planning this monument hasn’t been easy; it’s been a long and hard-fought struggle, and the fundraising needed to complete the vision continues. But building the monument has been far, far easier than building the beloved community and just nation and world Dr. King envisioned.

Will the new memorial inspire us to recommit to making sure his dream doesn’t stay just a dream?

Marian Wright Edelman is president and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund and its Action Council whose Leave No Child Behind mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood.