| dewy decimal |
2004-01-19 - 10:57 a.m.
Do you know why we had today off? No? Well once upon a time there was a very important man, the son of a pastor and school teacher, who would one day lead the mobilization of a community. He paid with his life for a movement that we all benefit from. If you forgot why you had this day to picnic and sleep in, I encourage you to remember.
"Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
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.
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 when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every tenement 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.'"
-Address at March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (Aug 1963)