Remembering Martin Luther King: I Have a Dream...

 A powerful image of unity and peace

Selma, Alabama

9 March 1965

Dynamic Global Greek Archbishop Iakovos, a true leader and probably THE most powerful Greek Orthodox prelate of North and South America  - one of the few prominent non-African American clergymen who had the courage to do so -  walks in solidarity with the Reverends Martin Luther King Jnr, Ralph Abernathy and Andrew Young to a memorial service for the Rev James Reeb of Boston who was killed by a white mob 2 days earlier - a similar photo would later be on the cover of LIFE, a historic moment for civil rights in the USA immortalised. 

Five months later, on the 6th of August, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson in the presence of Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders signed the  Voting Rights Act of 1965.  

Recalling ‘‘the outrage of Selma,’’ LBJ  called the right to vote 
‘‘the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men’’

2 years earlier, on 28 August 1963, Martin Luther King had made what was probably his most inspiring speech, a speech that continues to inspire 50 years later, and will continue to inspire and unite so long as inequality and injustice abound in the world...

I Have a Dream

 

And 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, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- 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!