Haha, the answer to that question is way above my pay grade unfortunately. Especially if you want a short answer. But no, MLK wouldn't have said we shoudl stop talking about race when rights are equal under the law. In fact he spoke beautifully (as he usually did) about the importance of the law, but also it's limitations:
“Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.”
From my (quite possibly naive) legal understanding, racism is done. There are laws on the books prohibiting racial discrimination. Great. But laws don't change attitudes. And laws don't (or at least haven't) addressed the historical injustices that afflict some black people today.
55 years is an incredibly short amount of time to expect millions of people to bounce back from legalised discrimination. And more importantly, why should you expect them to just bounce back? If we all acknowledge that African Americans were disgracefully mistreated and denied the most basic means to thrive (and of course, when they built their own success it was deliberately destroyed as in Tulsa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre)), wouldn't you say that there's a duty to make sure that those wrongs are corrected with at least as much effort as was used to enforce them?
Yes, there are many factors impacting African Americans today. I'm certainly not arguing that racism is the answer to every problem black people face, and certainly not overt racial discrimination. But a lack of generational wealth (a strong indicator of future prosperity)? Yep, we can trace much of that to historical racism. Living in poor, dangerous neighbourhoods (which affects educational standards and basic life options)? Yep, we can trace that to redlining and Jim Crow and housing contracts. High rates of single black motherhood? We can trace that, in part, to things like sentencing disparities and three strike laws that hugely disproportionately impacted young black men (I'll be the first to admit that there are many other factors around absentee fathers that have nothing to do with racism).
So sorry, I guess this wasn't very short, and didn't really answer your question. The fact is, it's extremely complicated. But while there are many people talking about racism in absolutely idiotic ways, that doesn't in any way mean that racism is now over and everybody talking about it is just whining.
The uncomfortable (for much of white America) truth is that America owes a debt to the people it profited from and dehumanised for centuries and I don't think that debt has been paid. If I had to give one suggestion on how to get there, I'd say invest heavily in African American children's education, prioritising low income neighbourhoods. Make it a huge project. Show those children that America is trying to lift them up. Show the parents that America is trying to make things right for their children. I think when black people develop some faith in America's desire to support their futures, it becomes much easier to forget the past.
