Question: Does Dr. King’s transcendent dream still inspire the American people?
Yesterday, August 28, 2020, was the 57th anniversary of Dr. King’s transformative “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in our nation’s capital.
I still vividly remember the experience of watching that speech as a 16-year-old on the black and white television in our home in Houston. That speech changed my life and my understanding of my country — for which I will be forever grateful.
It enabled me to see our founding documents (I had just finished studying these documents in my Advanced Placement high school civics class the previous semester) as exactly what Dr. King asserted that they were — timeless principles and promises to which our founders aspired and to which we were obligated to continually aspire to more fully implement and achieve. And, that these were not American values, but universal values applicable to each and every human being.
Does Dr. King’s dream of a country where every individual is indeed judged by the content of their character, rather than their skin color, still resonate with Americans today? It still inspires and convicts me to seek to implement that dream and share it with others so the dream will never die. I must confess the events of the past few weeks have been challenging, but my commitment to that vision of America has never, and will never, waver.
Are my fellow Americans still inspired, challenged, and motivated by Dr. King’s vision of a color-blind America that still values individual character and where we can all sit down together at the table of “brotherhood”?
This last week I experienced stirring evidence that the dream still lives.
As I watched Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) speech at the Republican National Convention on Monday night, I was greatly encouraged. One of the most talented and dedicated of the younger generation of senators, Senator Scott told of how he overcame adversities as he put it, of being “a poor black kid . . . from a single parent household.”
He explained that his mother “never lost faith in me, even when I lost faith in myself.”
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SOURCE: Christian Post, Richard D. Land
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