The Price of Inclusivity: Reflections on MLK's Dream in Modern America

Views expressed are personal and based on my individual perspectives and experience. These thoughts do not represent the positions or policies of my employer or any affiliated organizations.

What does it cost to keep our hearts open? What does it take to care about others the way Dr. King taught us to care? On this cold January morning in 2025, as winter wraps around us like a blanket, these questions keep pulling at my mind, making me wonder about who we are and who we could be.

I came to America from Ghana, carrying two worlds in my heart: the warm rhythms of my African home and the bright promise of American dreams. When I first read Dr. King's words as a young high school student, they lit a fire in me. His dream reached across oceans to touch my heart, making me believe I could lead in a new way. I took his message and made it my own, running and winning student council president and school prefect, learning that true leadership means making room for everyone's voice to be heard.

But America, this beautiful puzzle of a country—you hold so many truths, some bright as day, others hidden in shadow. I've lived and traveled through Montana's endless skies, Wyoming's wild mountains, and South Dakota's sacred grounds. I have explored half of the states in the Union. In these places, I've heard stories that don't make it into our history books. Stories that remind us that our mistakes weren't just about race—they were about power, about who gets to belong, about whose story gets told and whose gets swept under the rug.

We love to tell tales of brave pilgrims and Ellis Island mornings, of people coming here for a better life. But here's the hard truth: sometimes the very people who ran from unfair systems in Europe ended up building new unfair systems here. People who escaped being looked down on sometimes turned around and looked down on others. This isn't meant to point fingers—it's meant to make us think, to help us learn.

What does it cost to stay hopeful when old truths get twisted into new lies? What price do we pay to keep believing in better days when young people scroll through social media that turns our complex history into simple stories of good guys and bad guys? They miss the bigger truth—that we all have the power to do both wonderful and terrible things.

But here's what makes America beautiful—we never promised to be perfect. We just promised to keep trying to be better. When Dr. King talked about his dream, he wasn't describing a finish line. He was talking about a journey we're all on together.

The cost of being kind? It starts with being brave enough to see things as they really are. To stand under Montana's big sky and know that its beauty came with a price. To walk through Wyoming's windswept fields and hear the whispers of those who lost their homes. To look up at South Dakota's mountain monuments and understand that pride and pain often live side by side in our nation's story.

The price of staying open to others? We pay it by giving up the comfort of thinking we know everything. Every time we choose to listen instead of talk, to understand instead of judge, to welcome the complex truth instead of hiding in simple lies, we spend a little bit of our certainty. But what we get back is worth so much more—we get wisdom, understanding, and growth.

What does it cost to make sure everyone gets a chance to succeed? We pay in energy spent making room for different voices, in patience needed to build bridges between people who don't understand each other, in the humility to admit that none of us has all the answers.

As someone who chose America, who fell in love with what this country could be while seeing clearly what it is, I've learned that America's greatness isn't in perfect moments. It's in how we keep changing, keep growing, keep trying to be better.

Each generation faces the same choice: Will we do the hard work of making things better? Will we put in the time and effort to understand people who are different from us? Will we choose the harder path of facing truth over the easier path of believing comfortable stories?

Dr. King's dream wasn't just about black and white getting along—it was about having the courage to care deeply about other people. When I used his words in my own speeches back in my high school election campaign, I understood that his message worked everywhere because it spoke to what all humans want: to be treated with respect, to belong, to help build something bigger than ourselves.

Today, as false stories and twisted truths try to rewrite our history, we face a new challenge: holding onto what's real while reaching for what's better. The worst thing we can do is pretend America was always perfect. What makes this country amazing is that we keep trying to fix our mistakes, that we're brave enough to face our failures and still believe we can do better.

What does all this cost us? It costs us peaceful nights when we could be sleeping. It costs us easy conversations when we could be silent. It costs us comfortable lies when we could ignore hard truths. It costs us the courage to look honestly at ourselves—past and present—and still choose hope. It costs us daily decisions to believe that even when we stumble, even when we fall back, even when history feels heavy and hope feels far away, we can still build a country that lives up to our highest dreams.

This is what Dr. King's dream means today—not a sweet story that puts us to sleep, but a wake-up call to help build a better world. Yes, the price is high. But the cost of not trying would be so much higher. Because what we're buying with our work toward openness, kindness, and true inclusion is the heart of our democracy, the core of our humanity, and the future of the American dream itself.

And that, my friends, is a price worth paying. That is a dream worth keeping alive. That is a cause worth fighting for—today, tomorrow, and for all the tomorrows yet to come.