EDITORIAL A man’s fight for a "revolution of values."
It is one of the most famous speeches in American history.
On Aug. 28, 1963, at a massive march and rally in Washington D.C., the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. beseeched America to live up to the promise of its own birth as a nation.
"I have a dream," he thundered to the quarter million to half million assembled on the lawn of the Washington Monument that summer afternoon, "that 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.’ "
The march, along with a concerted effort on the part of student organizers in the South, helped draw attention to the second-class status imposed on blacks in America, and generated the kind of moral imperative needed to move Congress to enact sweeping reforms that ended legal segregation in the south.
"I have a dream," he said that day, "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."
On Monday, we will celebrate the central role that the Rev. King played in the history of the second half of the 20th Century as the face of a civil rights movement was built on the efforts of hundreds of committed activists and citizens. The Rev. King was its spokesman and, in many ways, its moral compass. He was committed to nonviolence, was willing to put his own life in harm’s way and remained resolute in the face of threats and violence.
He was a lightning rod for criticism. He was hated in many segments of the white community, called a rabble-rouser, an agitator. J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI branded him a communist. Some in the black community thought the Rev. King should have been more circumspect in seeking change, while others saw him as too timid, too deferential, chiding him for his unwillingness to meet violence with violence.
But the Rev. King persisted, fighting for a dream that went far beyond racial equality.
He called for an end to militarism, denouncing the Vietnam War and calling on the Johnson administration to put an end to the violence. He called for economic justice, kicking off the "Poor People’s Campaign" to break down the walls between rich and poor, to demand federal programs to end poverty and "to secure at least jobs or income for all."
In a 1967 speech at the Riverside Church in New York, he criticized American foreign policy.
" ‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable,’ " he said, quoting President John F. Kennedy. "Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken: the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments."
He called for a "revolution of values" led by an America that valued compassion. He envisioned an America that would "look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth," an America in which "the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war."
Now, nearly 37 years after his death, we continue to wait for the Rev. King’s dream to become our reality.