I have a dream…. That one day my children will be judged, not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character’.
Martin Luther King August 28th , 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington.
Powerful stuff…. and this particular piece,etched in the memories of so many came from within, it was not scribed before.
Towards the end of Martin Luther King’s speech there was a voice from close by but in the crowd. The voice was from Mahalia Jackson who shouted,
‘Tell them about the dream, Martin’.
King had been preaching on dreams for sometime, since 1960, then called The Negro and the American Dream. King suggested that, ‘It may well be that the Negro is God’s instrument to save the soul of America.’
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was partly intended to show mass support for the civil rights legislation proposed by President Kennedy in June. King and others agreed to keep their speeches calm, and to avoid provoking civil disobedience,sometimes associated with the civil rights movement.
The speech went a long way to be linked with the Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation.
One of the interesting comments mentioned on Thought for the Day was that it was a dream, a vision, a hope, a wish……
Not a complaint, not a statement with issues, not an indictment to riot….
This week it would be good to just spend time to reflect how far we have gone and how far we have still to go.
Rev’d Sue Martin
Curate at Gayton Group of Parishes
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