When I was in elementary school, I participated in a competition to recite Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech (brought to you by the wonders of YouTube). Although I didn’t win, even as a naive little boy, I could feel the power of Dr. King’s words – and I could hardly believe that such a world – where an entire group of people was blocked from basic rights and due process simply for the color of their skin – had ever existed.
Flash forward many years to today. I’ve now been tempered with an unfortunate cynicism which I can only attribute to “growing up” and “learning how things really work.” I have a better grasp of the fact that the comfy, meritocratic suburban elementary school bubble that I grew up in is not the world that many people grow up in. There is still a great deal of racism, sexism, homophobia, and a long other list of –ism’s and –phobia’s to conquer. And the beauty of this day (at least in America) and this particular speech is that it inspires us to look past our cynical and narrow world-views and to aspire for something better.
Or, as Dr. King put it:
And when this happens, when we allow 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