Martin Luther King`s Dream Heralds Thundering Spring Obmania! Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 54
Palash Biswas
Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the American civil rights movement.
...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr. - 364k - Cached - Similar pages - Note thisMartin Luther King Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin.
...nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html - 19k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
McCain Chooses Palin as Running MateNew York Times - 1 hour agoBy MICHAEL COOPER and ELISABETH BUMILLER DAYTON, Ohio - In a surprise move, Senator John McCain announced here on Friday that he chose Gov.Sarah Palin: the antidote to age and Clinton's disaffected voters guardian.co.ukMcCain picks Alaska's Palin as running mate Financial TimesTimes Online - TIME - Reuters - Newsweekall 3,380 news articles » हिन्दी में » History of the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The United States of America is located in the middle of the North American continent, with Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The United States ranges from the Atlantic Ocean on the nation's east coast to the Pacific Ocean bordering the west, and also includes the state of Hawaii, a series of islands located in the Pacific Ocean, the state of Alaska located in the northwestern part of the continent above the Yukon, and numerous other holdings and territories.[1]
The first known inhabitants of modern-day United States territory are believed to have arrived over a period of several thousand years beginning sometime prior to 15,000 years ago by crossing the Bering land bridge into Alaska. Solid evidence of these cultures settling in what would become the US is dated to at least 14,000 years ago.[
Barack Hussein
Obama II (pronounced /bəˈrɑːk hʊˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the nominee of the Democratic Party for the office of President of
...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama - 459k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
A way out for Singur
Cutting Corners
Ashok Mitra
Farmers can still be given a stake in the ownership of the plant
The acquisition of land by state agencies to meet specifications set by private sponsors of industrial projects has emerged as one of the gravest of national concerns. Industry without land to build it upon is inconceivable. Even so, in an overpopula... | Read..
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080829/jsp/opinion/story_9758630.jsp
Cabinet approves Companies Bill
NEW DELHI: The government on Friday approved the draft of a new companies bill to incorporate far-reaching changes, including scrapping the minimum paid-up capital requirement and setting up special courts to try offences.
The Companies Bill (2008) mandates 33 per cent independent directors on the board of a company, which will have to follow SEBI norms if it gets listed, said Mr Kapil Sibal, Science and Technology Minister. The new bill to replace the existing Companies Act, 1956 will be introduced in the coming session of Parliament in October. – PTI
I have been supporting Barrack Obama since the Day first.
For me, Martin Luther King`s Dream Heralds Thundering Spring Obmania!
I believe in History!
I believe in ideology!
I believe in Science!
I believe in the future of the indigenous communities, the real Mainstream of the life on this planet.
I support Barrack Obama because he belongs to the Main stream of black untouchables. His date with History is reminiscent to the dream of Martin Luther king!
My vision is made of historical and scientific analysis, I humbly claim!
Despite the fact that US Democrat presidential candidate Barrack Obama opened the Pandora's box in his acceptance speech in the early morning hours on Friday when he announced that there will be no tax sops for companies that outsource work out of the country, I don`t repent for my stance!
I may not forget the Aboriginal history of this World! from which our black brothers have emerged like Phoenix immortal making and proving themselves the mainstream of the most powerful Geopolitics in this Galaxy!
I may not forget the colonisation of Americas, Africa and Asia!
I may not forget the Imperialist Adventures by Columbus, Captain Cook and Vasco De Gama and the resultant ethnic cleansing continuous since then!
I may not forget Spartacus and martin Luther King!
Thus, despite knowing that no American President is allowed to overlap Americanism, American interests linked with Zionism, I have to support Barrack Obama! He is the symbol of the Black Brotherhood worldwide which proves its Indigenous potentials only in Olympic games!
I may not forget the social fabrics and realities inflicted by Caste System and Apartheid worldwide!
I want to remind you friends of the Industrialisation we have been habitual just three decades back. Mind you, our people , the Black Untouchables worldwide have been victimised by Industrialisation, Urbanisation, Colonisation and Imperialism from the first day of Capitalism! We bear the legacy of continuous Resistance! Continuous Insurrection! Continuous Annihilation!
Capitalism targets to grab all human and natural resources whatsoever cost may have to be paid for!
Just read the Wessex Novels written by Thomas Hardy!
Just read Charles Dickens!
I have written earlier how I was spellbound with the personalities of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and john Kennedy!
Later, I read all the bloody principles and doctrines of American Presidents! I agree that Barrack Obama might prove a worse Imperialist than George Bush! Only for this assumption, I may not dare to support the Hindutva campaign to deny the Black aboriginal indigenous People of the world the opportunity to prove that they are the components of Main Stream! They may rise above the Cutt OFF line of History.
Thus, US Elections are not a constitutional affair for me. It involves the basic questions of enlightenment, awakening, organisation, empowerment, participation and sharing! It involves the Dream to change! And it happens to be the dream of Martin Luther king!
Moreover, we oppose the US Zionist corporate Imperialism and its Weapon mass destruction Economy. We recognise the democracy ensured for the Citizens of America, which is proved time and again and which has made it possible that today, Barrack Obama has a date with the history.
We respect the Human Right Activists , Peace Activists and green Activists of America who lead the global Resistance!
We recognise the role played by the Civil Society and intelligentsia in America during Vietnam War and Iraq War!
We may not forget the Anti Imperialism Resistance led by our American Friends!
I was reading all the details of Anti War movement in America during Vietnam War in my Village Basantipur in the Terai of Nainital. my Fater Late Pulin Kumar Biswas had subscribed Dainik Basumati edited by no one else but a legendary Journalist like Vivekanand Mukhopadhyaya. I was aware of the slogan, My name is viet Nam, Your name is Viet Nam!
Then, we witnessed how President Johnson was dislodged and Ronald Reagan took over. I had already landed in DSB college while Watergate episode unfolded.
Then we may not forget the Impeachment against Bill Clinton involved with Monica Lewinsky!
Details of earlier industrialisation worldwide have been documented well in History as well as literature!
But in India, Industrialisation was introduced with a lot of sharing and participation under British Rule! It was the first opportunity to break the sickles of Manusmriti as Indigenous communities got entry in Army as well as Industries breaking the age old caste system! Job Mobilisation was possible to break away with Dark Age! Our Gandhian and socialist Ideologues construct their logic on indigenous production system and self sufficient rural society without addressing the Manusmriti struck social realities and the untouchable black productive forces! The irony is that those who happened to be up against Industrialisation and urbanisation, the hypocrite Marxists, The Gandhian carbides and the Socialist Oxides never oppose the colonisation under neo liberal globalisation as the Brahminical Hegemony interests are adequately protected by the Zionist Hindu white Post Modern Manusmriti Galaxy Order run by US Corporate Imperialism!
Our people, the indigenous black untouchables felt a touch of liberation in Industrialisation under British Rule.Specially in Bengal,where untouchability was banned long before Dr Ambedkar launched Abolish untouchability Movement thanks to the Matuas led by Harichand Thakur.
Thus, only due to the strategic annihilation policies of the Ruling policy in India, some of our learned friends related to subaltern Ideology feel that English is the language of Empowerment. only for the sake of job mobilisation they tend to support indiscriminate Industrialisation and never believe the Brahminical resistance hegemony! Unfortunately, they tend to support Imperialism, MNCs, Hindutva, Zionism, Colonisation,Fascism and Globalisation!
I am afraid to say that those pro Imperialist friends fail to study History, Ideology and science and create such a mess to continue such an inherent division and partition amongst us to disintegrate our Power as Mainstream!
See, how the Republicans project the face of the new strategic re alliance of Hindutva Zionism and white dominance with Bobby Jindal as vice Presidential candidate to rally the racial support!
We must be aware of the fact that they have stopped Maywati and they may stop Barrack Obama also!
Permanent land settlement system was the lifeline for elite Brahmins. Hindus as well as Muslim peasants with the sizable tribal population lost their land and remained farm labourers. New industries opened the doors of opportunities. Thus, the Jute Mills, Cotton Mills and tea gardens accommodated not only the Bengali SC ST OBC and Minorities but these classes belonging to UP, Bihar including Jharkhand, Orissa and southern states got job there on large scale. This bulk of population was liberated from Caste System!Mind you, the Rickshaw Pullers and Coolies from Jehanabad or Gaya continue to stay in Bengal just not only for their livelihood, but it is for their life`s sake also. they are predestined to be killed by the private armies of land lords on caste line in one or another massacre!
Jute, Cotton and Tea not only accommodated the Human Resources of the indigenous communities, but the small peasants also had a rare opportunity for supply of Raw material in those industries. The produce was also consumed by the same geopolitics. Thus, it proved to be benevolent and indigenous people felt empowered with those industries! The Black Untouchables were having their schools. It was the first opportunity of enlightenment which produced personalities like Jyoti Ba Phule, Savitri Phule, Periyar, Dr Ambedkar and Jogendra Nath Mandal. Since the High Castes in Bengal had always opposed job Mobilisation quoting indigenous production system and self sufficient economy as depicted in Gana Devta by Tara Shankar Mukhopaddhyaya, since the high castes always deprived the indigenous communities of the dignity of a human being and the opportunity of enlightenment and awakening, the knowledge, our people never involved in so called Freedom struggle of Zamindars and High Castes in the same way as the elite caste Hindus never supported the Peasant and indigenous insurrection including the first struggle of independence in 1857.
Industrialisation in neo Liberal era is never meant for the indigenous communities. They won`t get the skilled computerized numbered jobs anywhere despite reservation and quota! Black untouchables are displaced , uprooted and looted in Free India by the Ruling class on the name of Industrialisation, urbanisation and development! land Acquisition Act is misused in the best interests of the MNCs! Coast Line security act, Mining and Mine safety Act and all environment acts, RTI everything is violated to feed the capitalists.
SEZ, Nuclear Parks, Retail Chain, shopping Malls, Housing Colonies, Health centres, Multiplexes, Flyover, Metro and Aviation Links, IT, Chemical Hubs, Infrastructures, Power Projects, Big dams.. everything is meant for the Ruling class having adequate purchasing power with VISA, MASTER, Credit cards!
SEZ has a protection umbrella against taxation which creates deficit in the public revenue and the general public consisting of majority SC, ST, OBC and minorities have to pay for it. They never get the high profile jobs but they are destined to pay for the Pay Scale Hikes and Price rise and Inflation!
SEZ has the rare concession of Hundred percent Export. Local or any consumer in the geopolitics s may not get the product until imported. If some percentage of the product has to be catered in Indian markets, it is meant for the ruling Class as the much hyped NANO is destined!
The ruling Hegemony has killed the constitution and all democratic institutions! Laws are amended to protect the interests of the MNCs only. For example, the chemical law has no provision of Zero Pollution which is the characteristics all over Europe and Americas! Labour laws and company laws are changed abruptly. Citizenship Act is amended to make the NRI anti Indians bonafied Indians and deport the partition victim indigenous communities!
Our people have to be the bonded Peasants or bonded labour!
Our people have to be ejected out of retail market.
Our Natural Resources the water sources and the Jungles, the minerals are to be captured by MNCs. Our Ocean has become the War zone. Our Nationalities are used for target practice!
For whom is this Industrialisation is meant for?
is our Economy rely only on Out sourcing and IT industries and thus we have to react against barrack Obama!
With this, Obama has touched the raw nerve of many American citizens who have ostensibly lost out on jobs due to their being shipped to India.So when India woke up on Friday and caught on to the Democratic Presidential candidate's power speech, there were nervous exchanges of what Obama's anti-sourcing pitch could have meant or not meant.Infosys quarters started ringing with the reaction on how in a globalised world, outsourcing is a realty. HR Director of Infosys, Mohandas Pai said his company will wait and watch.According to the nation's premier IT lobbying association NASSCOM, "Obama probably meant manufacturing and not software. US companies themselves will back outsourcing. NASSCOM President Som Mittal said US companies would find the right balance, but having worked with us in the past, most companies increase their competitiveness when they work with India.
Earlier on August 26, Hillary Clinton's Speech at the Democratic National Convention had similar overtones. "We need to elect Barack Obama because we need a President who understands that America can't compete in a global economy by padding the pockets of energy speculators, while ignoring the workers whose jobs have been shipped overseas."
Forty-five years ago Thursday, Americans listened as civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. described his dream of justice and racial equality.
King delivered his now-famous "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the end of a massive protest march through the nation's capital on August 28, 1963. He warned that, 100 years after the end of slavery, African-Americans were still "crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination."
In his speech, the civil rights leader detailed the suffering caused by racism in the United States, and he warned that African-Americans would no longer put up with second-class treatment.
But the speech also was seen as an affirmation of core American values. Vowing never to give up hope, King said he believed that "one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed" that all people are created equal.
At least 200,000 people marched through Washington, D.C. for the 1963 protest, called the March for Jobs and Freedom. They listened to speeches by civil rights leaders and performances by folk musicians like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.
One year later, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting segregation and re-affirming African-American voting rights.
Thursday, Barack Obama will formally accept the Democratic party's nomination for president. Obama is the first African-American major party presidential candidate, and his speech, coming on the anniversary of King's famous address, will be closely watched.
Obama on course for history date
K.P. NAYAR
Denver, Aug. 28: History will be made in America tonight when a person of colour accepts the presidential nomination of a major political party for the first time since the founding of the United States of America.
But history will be made for other reasons too. Barack Obama will accept the mantle of his party's nomination exactly on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
That stirring speech before a quarter million mass in 1963 became the clarion call of the civil rights movement, the culmination of which will be Obama's candidacy for the highest office in the US, a dream that will come true tonight for millions of Americans.
It is an irony of history that Obama will realise King's dream during a week that also marks the 88th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the US constitution that gave women the right to vote.
It is an irony because Obama's presidential nomination is at the expense of the only woman who made a serious bid for the White House and lost it narrowly. Hillary Clinton's lost cause would have realised the dreams of millions of American women who fought for decades against the discrimination of being denied their franchise.
Last evening when Obama's nomination was passed by acclamation at the Democratic National Convention here, there were many black men and women among the delegates who had been refused service in white-owned grocery stores or not allowed to move into neighbourhoods populated by white families.
Many of them teared up when Nancy Pelosi, the chairwoman of the convention, announced the result of a voice vote on Obama's nomination and then danced along the aisles of the Pepsi Centre here to Love Train, a 1973 No.1 pop song about unity by the Philadelphia soul group, 'Jays.
Hundreds of women delegates openly wept when Hillary sought an end to the state-by-state roll call which had her name on the nomination.When it was the turn of her home state of New York to vote on her nomination — along with Obama's — Hillary took the mike and declared: "In the spirit of unity, with the goal of victory, let us declare together in one voice, right here, right now, that Barack Obama is our candidate."
The entire scripted process in healing intra-party divisions was an exercise that squabbling politicians in other countries could learn from.
Hillary, who was close second to Obama in the Democratic primary contests, wanted her supporters to have their voice heard at the convention. So they wore Hillary pins and head scarves, sported placards declaring their support for her lost cause and demonstrated outside the convention on the streets of Denver.
When the New York Senator spoke at the convention on Tuesday, her supporters would not let her start her address because they cheered and cheered on their feet without a break.
And the party decided that her name would be on the nomination and a roll call would be taken among the delegates. Early yesterday, however, Hillary released her delegates from their commitment to vote for her, but she did not tell them how to vote. Hillary herself said she would vote for Obama.
In in an impassioned speech, she reasoned why every Democrat should now support Obama wholeheartedly. And when New York's name was announced for the roll call, Hillary gracefully ended her dream of moving back into the White House — at least for now — by asking for an end to the process.
Last night also saw the rehabilitation of Bill Clinton among the Democratic Party faithful after he was severely criticised during the primaries for disaparaging Obama, bringing race into the campaign and generally lowering the tone of the primaries.
But last night, Democrats forgave their party's most successful President in recent memory after he made what was probaly the strongest case by any speaker at the four-day convention for electing Obama.
His speech was a testimony to Clinton's oratorical skills: eloquently, he told the Democrats the exact opposite of what he has been saying all along the primary season, but his audience roared in adulatory approval.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080829/jsp/foreign/story_9758837.jsp
Witnesses to King's 'Dream' see new hope
MICHAEL POWELL
Martin Luther King Jr delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington DC on August 28,1963
Denver, Aug. 28: She figured this dream for dead so many decades ago.
Dezie Woods-Jones plans to stand with her California delegation in a stadium here and listen to Barack Obama, the first black major-party presidential nominee in the nation's history, give his acceptance speech. Woods-Jones, now in her 60s, is one of a tiny handful of delegates who on the same day in 1963, August 28, stood with hundreds of thousands at the March on Washington and heard a young minister, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., deliver his soaring "I Have a Dream" speech.
"I was young, naive enough to think I would see that in 5, 10 years," she said. "Then you see leaders killed, you see police brutality, residential segregation in cities. About 10 years ago I thought: I won't see this. This is something for my grandchildren."
She paused, her eyes now red-rimmed. "What to say except, 'Oh, hallelujah!' " she said. "We have a lot of work, a lot, but we are so much closer than I expected."
These veterans of the March on Washington are the living connective tissue to the America of 1963, when the police in some cities and towns still beat blacks with truncheons, and the story of their journey is as complicated as race itself.
At least five veterans of that march travelled to Denver this week as Democratic delegates, among them Representative John Lewis of Georgia, who is the last man alive of the 10 who spoke that day at the Lincoln Memorial.
This son of sharecroppers, who was almost beaten to death by police officers in Selma, Alabama, when he marched with civil rights activists across a bridge, stood on a sun-splashed street in Denver and considered the distance travelled.
His bald head still bears near half-century-old scars.
"We've had disappointments since then, but if someone told me I would be here," Lewis said, shaking that head. "When people say nothing has changed, I feel like saying: 'Come walk in my shoes.' "
Many veterans of the march will gather at televisions in their living rooms or sit with friends and old comrades and watch an event they would have considered impossible not just in 1963, but perhaps in 1983, or 1993. Theirs is often a cautious optimism; time has left them with a sense of the provisional nature of progress.
David R. Jones, now president of the Community Service Society in New York, recalled milling about in Washington in 1963, a 15-year-old there with classmates from a lefty school in Manhattan. Then King began to speak, and they fell quiet. "I never saw that kind of a speech," Jones said. He was transported. But the years ahead often cast a deep shadow. Jones, who is black, was beaten by the side of the road in Maine. He fought for decades to integrate middle-class housing developments and saw young whites wave watermelons at black marchers in Brooklyn.
New York Times News Service
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I Have a Dream"
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio. (2)]
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
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 one hundred 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. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. 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. 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." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. 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 quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. 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. And 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. And 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.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And 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 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 slave owners 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 injustice, 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 the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."²
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, 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!³
Book/CDs by Michael E. Eidenmuller, Published by McGraw-Hill (2008)
¹ Amos 5:24 (rendered precisely in The American Standard Version of the Holy Bible)
² Isaiah 40:4-5 (King James Version of the Holy Bible). Quotation marks are excluded from part of this moment in the text because King's rendering of Isaiah 40:4 does not precisely follow the KJV version from which he quotes (e.g., "hill" and "mountain" are reversed in the KJV). King's rendering of Isaiah 40:5, however, is precisely quoted from the KJV.
³ At: http://www.negrospirituals.com/news-song/free_at_last_from.htm
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Also in this database: Martin Luther King, Jr: A Time to Break Silence
External Link: http://www.mlkmemorial.org/
External Link: http://www.thekingcenter.org/
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