Fifty- three years ago today, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered
one of the greatest orations an American -- or anyone -- has ever given. Here, he begins the purposeful repetition of "I have a dream..." that crescendos into the oration's emotionally rousing conclusion:
"Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
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."
Many of us (of a certain age) can practically recite the conclusion from heart:
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom 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!
