Dr.Martin Luther king Jr. the forgotten prophet.
By Ali Dan Ismael, London Editor-in-Chief.
July 4, 2025. America celebrates 249 years of independence—a nation forged in rebellion, matured through contradiction, and once revered as a beacon of hope for immigrants, dreamers, and the oppressed. Fireworks will explode across city skies. Patriotic speeches will echo from podiums. But beneath the fanfare, a disturbing silence looms.
This year’s Independence Day is unlike any in living memory. It comes in the aftermath of the return of MAGA—not just as a slogan, but as a full-fledged ideological state plan, codified in Project 2025. The blueprint, developed by the Heritage Foundation and over 100 conservative think tanks, lays out a radical re-engineering of the American republic.
As the U.S. crosses this symbolic threshold, one question hangs heavy in the air:
Is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream still alive in the America of Project 2025?
A Dream Deferred, A Republic Reimagined
In his historic 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. King envisioned:
A nation where Black children and white children walk together as equals
A society judged by character, not color
A democracy that delivers justice for all, not privilege for a few
But 62 years later, and 249 years into the American experiment, the opposite is being systematically engraved into law.
Project 2025 proposes:
Dismantling federal civil rights oversight
Eliminating DEI programs in schools, hospitals, and workplaces
Reinstating nationalist immigration policies that disproportionately target African and Muslim countries
Militarizing ICE and criminalizing legal protest
Dr. King warned of the “tranquilizing drug of gradualism.” Today, we are seeing not gradualism—but aggressive regression.
The African Diaspora: Caught in the Crossfire
For decades, the African immigrant community believed in the American Dream. They came as doctors, engineers, nurses, professors, and entrepreneurs. They paid their taxes, played by the rules, and outperformed many native-born Americans in education and job creation.
Yet today, they are:
Deported at record rates
Profiled at airports and traffic stops
Silenced in classrooms and demonized in conservative media
Excluded from public services under new “citizens first” policies
In the name of “restoring American greatness,” MAGA has redefined belonging as whiteness and power as exclusion.
MAGA and the New American Nationalism
Project 2025 is not Trump’s personal project—it is the institutionalization of the MAGA worldview. It is a declaration that:
Multiculturalism has failed
Black history is divisive
Immigration is a threat, not an asset
Federal power should serve White Christian nationalism
This is a radical break from Dr. King’s dream. In fact, it is a resurrection of the nightmare he died trying to end.
It echoes George Wallace more than Abraham Lincoln. It reflects Bull Connor’s firehoses, not the promise of the Voting Rights Act.
America at 249: A Republic at a Crossroads
At 249, the United States should be entering a stage of civic maturity—leading the world in inclusion, innovation, and moral leadership. Instead, it is witnessing a rollback of the very ideals enshrined in its founding documents.
Ask yourself:
Would Dr. King recognize this America?
Would he feel safe marching today?
Would he believe that “the arc of the moral universe still bends toward justice”?
For African immigrants, the answer is even more sobering. You can build this house, but you may not be allowed to live in it. You can defend its flag, but you will be watched as a foreigner. You can recite the Dream, but be denied the promise.
The African Answer: Return, Rebuild, Rise
In the shadow of Project 2025, there is a growing awakening among the African diaspora:
That staying in America may now mean perpetual suspicion and erasure
That Dr. King’s dream is no longer protected, but prosecuted
That the time has come to repurpose our excellence back home
Just as India recalled its engineers, and China built tech empires with returning nationals, Africa must call home its sons and daughters—not in retreat, but in strategic relocation.
We must transform “I Have a Dream” into “We Have a Continent”.
Conclusion: The Dream is Dying in America, But It Can Be Reborn in Africa
Project 2025 is not a policy paper. It is a funeral program for Dr. King’s vision.
But history offers an alternative: that when dreams die in one land, they are reborn in another.
As America turns 249, African immigrants must choose:
To remain guests in a nation becoming less hospitable
Or to become architects of a new Africa—bold, sovereign, and united
Because if freedom is no longer found in the West, then it must be forged at home.
Ali Dan Ismael
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