The “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. before a crowd of some 250,000 people at the 1963 March on Washington, remains one of the most famous speeches in history. Weaving in references to the country’s Founding Fathers and the Bible, King used universal themes to depict the struggles of African Americans, before closing with an improvised riff on his dreams of equality. The eloquent speech was immediately recognized as a highlight of the successful protest, and has endured as one of the signature moments of the civil rights movement.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Gave one of the most famous speeches ever given, it ranks up there with President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and President JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY, INAUGURAL ADDRESS (Ask not what your Country can do for you). All three speeches help to define an the times, all three speeches inspired a nation.
On this day of remembrance let us not forget the power of words and deeds. Lincoln reminded us of the sacrifice of freedom, the high price we must pay, with the blood of our fallen brothers, for our pursuit of happiness, Kennedy asks us a question, where does our responsibility start, who is master of there destiny, government or self and Dr. King reminds us to dream big, of freedom and equality for all.
We have come along way, yet it seems we still need to hear the words of Lincoln, Kennedy and King, it seems we have forgotten the face of our fathers. We have allowed the blood of the fallen to be in vain, relented out responsibility to the government and stopped dreaming of freedom and equality.
We have sold out…
As a nation we have decided that government is our dream, that they, the elite, are better suited to decide what freedoms we are allowed and what are not. We have taken the words of Dr. King and allowed them to be taken hostage by a few, bastardized and devalued, rendered worthless, for a few minor gains, and greater setbacks.
President Kennedy’s words ring hollow on this generation, where we are happy to not ask what we can do, but rather beg for what the government will do. Personal responsibility is no more, instead we look to the nanny state with pleading eyes, asking for the scraps of liberty they see fit to toss to us.
The blood of our fallen, who have fought for our freedoms must not be in vain, the sacrifice of Dr. King, the martyr of a movement, of a generation and race, cannot be in vain! His words cannot echo hollow in the minds of this generation and the next.
It is time to stop the madness, time to stop the finger pointing…
Freedom and personal responsibility go hand in hand, you cannot have one without the other. Sacrifice and equality are of the same cloth, yet we seem to have been mislead.
Take this day to read all three speeches, stop and reflect upon the words, hear the voices of our fathers and heed them well.. For the day will come when our liberty will be a thing of the past.
God Bless
Paul Sposite
An American Point of View 