Today is a national holiday to honor the memory of a man who called America to answer to her principles. He dreamed of a day when this nation would “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.'” He dreamed of a day when people would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” He dreamed of a day when Americans would all “stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
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!”
It’s a dream that seems more radical today than before, although for surprisingly different reasons.
