The other night I was at an event to raise money for projects in Africa. It was international and there were far more African-Americans than caucasoids.

During the evening, a beautiful song came on and everyone rose to sing it. I asked what it was and they said it was the “Negro National Anthem.”

My innocent response was, “for which country?” The guests at the table stared at me as though I had just landed from another planet and said, “America, of course.”

“I thought we already had a national anthem,” I continued naively. “No, that is for the white man, not us.”

I asked if there was a Blonde national anthem too . . . or Hispanic, or Asian.

But as I sat there watching people sing with pride a song that divides the races, I thought about what Rosa Parks must have felt, sitting on the back of the bus, not welcome to participate in the bounties of America, and excluded solely because of the color of her skin.

Here we are on the eve of a new millennium and it seems as though things haven’t changed much, they just have new names. Is this really the dream Martin Luther King had for America?