I have a dream

In June when my family visited Washington, D.C., we made the rounds of the monuments and memorials that are situated along the National Mall. After ascending the lower granite steps and then the upper marble steps to reach the pink marble floor of the chamber of the Lincoln Memorial, I turned around to take in President Lincoln's view. As I looked out toward the Reflecting Pool, the World War II Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Capitol, I couldn't help but recall what it would have been like to have been in this place on the day when Martin Luther King, Jr., made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Alas, I missed that event because I had not yet been born, but if I had a time machine, that is undoubtedly one point in history that I would visit.

Today marks the 45th anniversary of that historic event. As a nation we have come a distance during the past four and a half decades in the quest to break down racial barriers - as evidenced by the fact that Barack Obama will be making his acceptance speech at Invesco Field in Denver tonight to accept his party's nomination for the presidency of the United States. But the dream of racial equality in America has clearly not yet been fully realized. 

And so I offer Dr. King's words for consideration once again: "We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children. . . . 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. I have a dream today!"