Dear Editor,
I recently gave a reading of the iconic “I Have a Dream” speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., which he gave at the March on Washington in 1963. I gave the reading at Castle Rock Rehabilitation Center and the Villa for President’s Day and Black History Month. The speech is a solemn reminder. The words not only speak for themselves, but they are necessary. It is heavy stuff, but is there anything more important? The speech mentions President Abraham Lincoln as well, and the key to the speech is what it says about hopes for children. When it speaks of hopes for men, I also add “and women.” This is the hope that this 77-year-old man had to share. The speech advocates for the necessity to appreciate what the Black community has done for our country.
The following are some excerpts from the speech:
“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination...
“Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children...
“So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still 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 [and women] are created equal...
“When we allow 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.”
Timothy Laboria
Green River
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