I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I was there that day.
Some friends have passed. Some still march. No reason to rest.
The dream remains so long as people believe.
God bless your good work Dr. King
I remember the day — the summer between third and fourth grades — and the speech. Great that you mentioned it, John.
Dvorak – You were there?
I doubt it…Maybe it was Eideard.
Anyway, every man has faults, but I have never heard a speaker who was able to speak in such a captivating way.
-M
Some friends have passed. Some still march. No reason to rest.
Eidard, you make it sound like the world hasn’t changed. That marching is still required. Perhaps it is, but for different reasons.
Wouldn’t it be fruitful to take a rest, see what gains have been made, and where efforts should be refocused. For example, that overt racism and bigotry have declined substantially, but that…well, there are still lots of problems, on all sides, many of which we may not agree upon.
Aren’t today’s problems more subtle. Based more on culture, expectations, misguided incentives, and unintended consequences.
MLKJ was incredibly eloquent, courageous, and on target in his criticisms. Given how much things have changed, it seems strange that Rev Jackson and Sharpton still sound just like he did 40 years ago.
http://www.thekingcenter.org/
Great words from a great man (req. flash)
The sad thing is, not many schools are able to teach the whole of the speach becase of copyrights held by the King Family.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/14/AR2006011400980.html
(sorry about the long link)
They need to cut down the number of federal holidays to New Years, Memorial Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I know things must have been different in the 60’s, but honestly — I don’t care. I’m as interested in Martin Luther King as I am in hearing about the Holocaust, Hitler, Vietnam, draft dodging and bra burning.
That old stuff is nearly 40 years old and we shouldn’t have to hear about it today.
>They need to cut down the number of
>federal holidays to New Years, Memorial Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Simple solution: Get rid of Christmas and Columbus holidays for Federal employees. Give employees a paid day in the winter of their choosing and trash Columbus day altogether.
Dr. King believed in a color blind society. This unfortunently can’t come to pass in America.
The media nearly soiled itself in 2000 when Liberman was running as Vice President.
“OMG A JEW IS RUNNING FOR VICE PRESIDENT!”
Society itself defeats that. Everyone in the back of their minds even if they deny it has some sort of prejudice. I was being followed by a black person yesterday while at the mini mart near my house. I was looking at him in the corner of my eye prepared should anything happen. Then he asks me.
“You’re a writer?”
I turned around puzzled and then realized that he was asking because of the shirt I had on with my roommates poetry night info on it.
I was ashamed of myself being mixed black and white. Relieved I told him I didn’t write poetry very much but I was a novel writer. He was a writer as well. We exchanged numbers, he got in a car that came to pick him up and left. I made a good friend there.
The moral of the story is, don’t let society blind you and make you think ignorance is bliss.
Dr. King wouldn’t be happy with a lot of things that have happened this is true. But proress is progress. People have the opportunity now with the internet and countless resources to acheive whatever they want if they work hard enough to achieve it. Often society itself holds them back. In the form of people who don’t believe. You have to conform and accept the limits society places on you. The people who embrace that are already defeated. They look at life and anything they fail at and think to themselves “They were right I never will be anything great or realize my dream.”
So to the largely negative posts above me (The last three) The positive can’t exist without the negative. You choose to focus on the negative. It doesn’t mean nothing good came out of it. He deserves a day of rememberance.
And yeah the Mayor of New Orleans is a moron. Don’t pay him any attention.
> Whatever Dr. M.King might have really believed is long since dead
This has to be a troll.
Go fishing on slashdot, to_glow.