Dr. Martin Luther King delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington on August 28, 1963. National Archives and Records Administration, via Wikimedia

All the discussions today of how much racial progress we’ve made since Dr. Martin Luther King was alive reminded me of a disturbing point about the blackwhite health gap mentioned in recent research, some of which I discussed in an Atlantic essay over the weekend.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, African Americanshave beencatc...