Bending the Arc Towards Justice
There are moments in time that forever alter the course of human history. Fifty years ago, at 3 p.m. on August 28, 1963, was one such moment.
On that sunny August afternoon, a 34-year-old southern preacher ascended the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to address the hundreds of thousands who had bravely gathered to stand for freedom. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke with a strong, steady calm, with a message for the ages.
Our Nation has blessed heritage, but slavery is our original sin, a tragic stain on our history. A stain that took a horrific Civil War and the blood of hundreds of thousands to begin to erase. And, in 1963, Jim Crow was still alive and well, enforcing through law second-class citizenship on millions of African-Americans.
Even after Brown v. Board of Education, schools remained segregated. Voting booths were largely closed to black voters. Lynchings and brutality were far too common. And our system of justice turned a blind eye towards the rights of African-American citizens.
It was against this pervasive discrimination, this wretched oppression of millions of Americans, that Dr. King spoke. And the words he uttered inspired with Divine force.
He did not speak in anger. He did not speak in sorrow. He spoke with hope, with passion, with urgency, for a better world.
"We have...come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now.
...
"Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy.
"Now it the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.
"Now it the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
"Now is the time to make justice a reality to all of God's children."
That vision was powerful, compelling.
In 1963, however, protesting for civil rights carried much greater risk than any demonstration does today. It meant possibly jail time and facing police officers armed with clubs and fire hoses. Or, potentially, even worse.
But, even when America was failing an entire class of her people, Dr. King refused to abandon his country. Citing the principles of freedom embedded in our founding documents, Dr. King reminded America of its sacred obligation to live up to its ideals.
"When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir," he said "This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Dr. King, drawing on his Christian faith, advocated taking the harder, higher road to freedom. "We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline," he said. "We must not allow our creative protest to denigrate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force."
His insistence on using peaceful recourse to rectify some of the worst wrongs in American history is a shining triumph of not only his moral strength, but the strength of a nation that resolves its internal conflicts with words instead of weapons.
As Dr. King explained in his monumental speech that day, his dream was an unyielding, unshakable, unrelenting belief in the America that our Founders promised - where each and every American is equal, free and able to pursue opportunity.
"I have a dream," Dr. King famously proclaimed. He spoke to our better angels, weaving a tapestry of that prophetic dream:
"I...have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
"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 out in the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
"I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character.
"I have a dream today."
Dr. King believed in the American Dream, and he believed in America. He believed in justice and in the power of truth. And he courageously stood up to oppression, to injustice, to evil...with grace, with compassion, with dignity
His dream is our dream, it is America's dream. And today we celebrate and remember. And redouble our commitment to keep working to expand that dream to each and every American.
Please, today, take a few minutes and watch again this epic speech that changed our history:
