"Life for none of us has been a crystal stair, but there is something we can learn from the broken grammar of that mother, that we must keep moving. If you can’t fly, run; if you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk, crawl; but by all means keep moving." -- from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Founder's Day speech at Spelman College on April 10, 1960, referring to the mother in Langston Hughes' poem "Mother to Son." The speech was an early clarion call for non-violent protest against racial injustice and segregation.
Dr. King, whose birthday is celebrated tomorrow as a Federal holiday, also touched on the pursuit of materialism instead of justice, and challenged the audience of students to "keep moving, for it may well be that the greatest song has not yet been sung, the greatest book has not been written, the highest mountain has not been climbed."
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