Fifty-one years ago today, about a month before I was born, Martin Luther King Jr. stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and told us all about his dream:
YouTube link for this speech
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!
Was Michael Brown judged by the content of his character? No, he was not. He was judged by the color of his skin. A police officer, a man who is sworn to uphold the law and protect the citizens, was not only the unrighteous judge of Michael Brown, but also his jury and executioner.
With a President of African ancestry in the White House, it's fashionable today to pat ourselves on the back and tell ourselves "Mission Accomplished". But just as George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln was arrogant and premature, we are arrogant and premature if we think Reverend King's dream has come to pass. It has not. For too many Americans of African ancestry, living in America is still less a dream than a nightmare. For Michael Brown's parents, having lost their son. For Reverend King's family, having lost their son, their husband, their father, less than 5 years after he delivered this stirring oration. For every black youth treated more harshly by a police officer than if he'd been white. For black children still often condemned to decaying underfunded schools. For every black prisoner serving a sentence 10 times as long as a white prisoner would be serving for the same amount of a slightly different drug.
Over half a century has gone by, and we still haven't brought that dream to pass. How many more half-centuries will it take for America to rise up and become a truly free nation? How long before America finally lets freedom ring?
This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a 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 peaks 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 every molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to 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!"