The whole country — indeed, the whole world — is reflecting today on the stirring speech that Martin Luther King, Jr. gave in Washington fifty years ago today. Anyone who thinks his dream has been realized need only read the comments to just about any news story on Yahoo to see that much work needs to be done. Which is not to say that the groundwork for a world in which our children will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character hasn’t been laid. But it will take several more generations, I fear, before the task is complete.
Today’s New York Times and NPR both reported that the catch phrase “I Have a Dream” was not originally part of the speech Dr. King had prepared to give. He had spoken of his “dream” in several speeches leading up to the Washington speech, but it was only mid-speech — at the urging of Mahalia Jackson — that he set his prepared text aside, and launched into what are some of the most famous words ever uttered.
I was four and a half years old when the March on Washington occurred, and have no recollection of it whatsoever. I do, however, remember walking on the campus of the University of Michigan a few hours after Dr. King was assassinated in April of 1968. A group of students had gathered, and were peacefully holding up signs. One read: “He had a dream. Has it died?”
The dream lives. But we still have a lot of work to do.