I have a dream.
I wanted to take a moment today to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech. Because I realized that I, undoubtedly like most people who were not alive at the time of his speech, am not familiar with most of the rest of it outside of “I have a dream…” over and over again. So I decided to provide you with some quotes that are interesting but not as familiar to most.
“It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.”
“The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
“We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”
And although this is more familiar, being as it is the end of his speech, I just like this part. “When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”
I really think this is most effective if you try to imagine King up on the podium looking over the reflecting pool towards Washington Monument, speaking these words with such passion and dignity, providing inspiration to all those who came to seek change in America.
I am saddened to think that King is not alive today. Although he may have been troubled by current events, I believe he would have been pleased with the progress this country has made in the last 40 years. This is not to say that we are not without racial divisions and divisiveness, but that we can take a moment of repose and look at how far we have come.
djno sunnyoutside
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If you would like to read the full text of King’s speech, you can find it here.