Martin Luther King's Dream (1)

I find the proximity of today's celebration of Martin Luther King Day with tomorrow's inauguration of our first African-American President more than just a curiosity. It is a reminder of how far we have truly come in the past 41 years since Dr. King's death. Yes, I know that's a cliche these days. But by writing it again I am trying to reinforce in my mind the fact of it, the truth of its still unbelievable historic importance.

Yesterday part of the kickoff of the inaugural events took place at the Lincoln Memorial, truly sacred ground for many of us. There in front of The Great Emancipator Dr. King enunciated his dream. It is still an indelible image of, then, unrealized promise and hope. It is still a reminder of how far from reality that dream was in 1963. (Link to YouTube of speech.) Yesterday the Obama inauguration celebration began. It is one of the great moments of the American Dream and the American Promise of liberty and justice for all. It may be one of the greatest moments of my 60 years of life and may define a different understanding of our nation forever.

On this MLK Day in this 2009 Inaugural Week may a new dream be born. But more on that tomorrow. For today, again, words of Dr. King, still relevant, still challenging all these years later.

No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution. The world in which we live is geographically one. The challenge that we face today is to make it one in terms of brotherhood….

Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.

Source: A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration From the Great Sermons of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.