The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: the best of America

Were Martin Luther King alive today to celebrate his 90th birthday, what would he have to say about his nation’s contentious racial landscape?

America is a far different place than when King was felled by an assassin’s bullet in 1968 at the young age of 39.

An African-American has served two terms as president of the United States — something King likely thought even his children would never see.

Blacks have served at the top levels of the Cabinet, on the Supreme Court, in the halls of Congress, as state governors. In New York, both houses of the Legislature are led by African-Americans, and the state’s chief law-enforcement official is a black woman.

Indeed, race is no longer any barrier not just to the ballot box, but to elective office.