Tag: ban ar-15 rifles

Historian Jon Meacham writes that, “With a single phrase, King joined Jefferson and Lincoln in the ranks of men who’ve shaped modern America.” (Wikipeda)

Sixty years ago today at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom which attracted 250,000 people to the nation’s capitol, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his I Have a Dream speech which was to become one of the most iconic speeches of the American Civil Rights Movement as he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to address the throngs gathered on the mall. Speaking from a script prepared fewer than twelve hours earlier, according to one of the co-writers, singer Mahalia Jackson shouted from the front of the crowd as he spoke, “Tell us about the dream, Martin.” And he did.

I say to you today, my friends, 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.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, . . . one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. . . With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. . . .

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” (excerpt from Teaching American History)

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I have a dream, too, that one day the AR-15 rifles that contribute to the killing fields across America – including the most recent hate crime at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida while the 60-year anniversary of the March was being celebrated in Washington, D.C. this past Saturday – that those weapons of mass destruction will be banned permanently from the face of the earth. Our hearts are with the families of the innocent Black people who were still being judged by the color of their skin.