Centuries ago, the United States was a bold new experiment in freedom. No one in world history had ever attempted to do what our founders sought to accomplish. It took enormous God-given faith, courage, conviction, and sacrifice to even attempt it.

However, as noble as their dreams and efforts were, our founders were imperfect and fallen people. As the United States took shape, there were several significant, glaring flaws that represented grotesque hypocrisy: slavery, racism, the treatment of Native Americans, and the second-class citizenship of women.

As we examine these sobering flaws, we need to understand something about the global context. At that time in history, slavery was a common practice around the world. It’s also important to realize that, had the colonies not won their independence, European expansion across North America by Britain, France, and Spain would have been relentless. The thought of Native Americans continuing to dwell as they had done for centuries is a naive fantasy.

As for women, no nation had ever provided equality to women. Old attitudes and patterns of behavior carried over into the New World, clouding and polluting the formative years of the nation.

As the decades went by and the United States took shape, the nation had a gut-wrenching and lengthy learning curve in what God-given freedom and a nation by the people, of the people, and for the people really looks like in practical, everyday reality. That learning curve continues today.

In 2024, we still look to a day, as Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed, when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

When I try to look at racism in America today from 30,000 feet, I see a spectrum. On one end is real racism, hating and mistreating people because of the color of their skin be it white, yellow, brown or black. This racism is not one-way. For example, racism by Blacks against whites is just as racist as the opposite. On the other end of the spectrum is paranoia and manipulation, a perverted preoccupation by individuals and groups to inject racism where it does not exist. Both extremes are wrong and destructive. In the broad center is a large racism-free zone, where most people in America dwell today.

As a man of faith, I am told that a tree shall be known by its fruit, and that I am to love my neighbor as myself. In reality, there is only one race, going back to Genesis: the human race made in God’s image. There is no legitimate excuse or justification for racism.

To those who are compelled to stand up against racism, remember that the ends do not justify the means. You and I are blessed to live in the greatest nation on earth. This nation is not a dictatorship or a free-for-all. It is a nation based on rule of law.

You do not have the right to fight injustice with malice and violence. For example, Prudence Crandall, Connecticut’s Official Heroine, took the high moral ground in the 1830s and continues to be an inspirational role model today.

As we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I urge you to keep your own heart clean, appeal to higher ideals and moral conscience, enlist the legal resources at your disposal, and prayerfully follow in the non-violent footsteps of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesus the Christ, whom both Prudence Crandall and Dr. King served and proclaimed.

Drew Crandall of Vernon is President of Keep In Touch.