Today, let us remember Dr. King and the other heroes of the American Civil Rights movement. On August 28, 1963, Dr. King gave his most famous speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial:
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.
There are legitimate debates about what civil rights mean in our era, when the initial aims of the civil rights movement have largely been accomplished. In thinking about the issues they raise, nothing is as helpful, I think, as going back to Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches and writings, which are firmly rooted in a long and rich tradition of reflection on the meaning of equality. (A tradition, by the way, to which “by any means necessary” is notably foreign.)
