“I have a dream.”
Martin Luther King Jr. said those words on August 28, 1963. “Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream,” he added at the March on Washington. “It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.”
But what was King’s dream? He wanted equal rights for all. King said he hoped “sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together.” And that “little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls.” He dreamed for his kids too.
“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.”
King used his voice to make these dreams come true. He spoke out against unfairness — and took action. In 1955 he helped lead the Montgomery bus . Until then, Black people in Montgomery, Alabama, could sit only in the back of a public bus. The boycott worked! Black people won the right to sit in the front.
King traveled across the United States. Wherever he went, King stood up for those who were treated unfairly. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he wrote.
King called the worst tragedy not “ by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” He believed everyone should speak up. “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”
King died in 1968. Yet his message carries on. Do you see unfairness? Speak up. Do you see cruelty? Use your voice. Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. You can continue to make King’s dream come true.
Updated January 14, 2022, 5:02 P.M. (ET)
By Russell Kahn (Russ)
