Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'm taking this opportunity to break from my normal blogonality, and to write a few inadequate words on the man who epitomizes this great country for me. It's no stretch to say that of all the men and women who have lived and died for this nation, Martin Luther King, Jr. is the one who stands out as my hero.

Slavery had been abolished a century before, yet this country remained mired in what seems to me an unthinkable practice of racial discrimination and segregation. During his formative years, King lived in that unthinkable world as he grew up in urban Atlanta, Georgia. It's difficult to imagine that he was only 24 when he first became the pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery. An incredible legacy of peaceful protests in the face of violent opposition followed, as King and his peers successfully led the overturning of racial segregation in public transportation as inspired by Rosa Parks, the overturning of Jim Crow laws beginning with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957 and culminating in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1965, the incredible March on Washington that climaxed with his "I Have a Dream" speech, the horror of what became Bloody Sunday and the subsequent, successful Selma to Montgomery March.

It seems inevitable, if no less horrific, that King met such a violent end. "Ben, make sure you play Take My Hand, Precious Lord in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty." Not a perfect man, not to be worshipped, but still an incredible American, Christian, and human being.

I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" Somebody's asking, "How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?" Somebody's asking, "When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?" Somebody's asking, "When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?" I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because "truth crushed to earth will rise again." How long? Not long, because "no lie can live forever." How long? Not long, because "you shall reap what you sow."

Martin Luther King, Jr. March 25, 1965