A Voice of Change

Today, I had to work for a bit, but on a project assessing the current President in advance of his State of the Union. I live in Washington, D.C., the home of history, of marches, where more black people reside than white and the place where people gauge progress in the dream of Martin Luther King Jr. Hell, I live a stone’s throw away from a park named after the guy, where on election day I have never seen a more joyous celebration of every color come together to hug in the street while police cars drove at 1mph with hands outstretched encouraging the overtaking of their streets. It was a great moment I will never forget.

Obama’s number may have skidded a bit, it’s been a good year. This current assessment probably would never have been allowed if not for the person we celebrate today. Rather than quote his Dream speech, as wonderful as it is, I’d like to highlight a portion of one of MLK’s brilliant oratories from “The Promised Land.” Here it is, re-arranged into poem for as I’d like to dream it.

I See the Promised Land

...And another reason I'm happy to live
in this period is that we have been forced
to a point where we're going to have to
grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with
through history, but the demands didn't force them to do it.

Survival demands
we grapple with them.
Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace.
But now, no longer can they just talk about it.
It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence
in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence.

And that's all this whole thing is about.
We aren't engaged in any negative protest
and in any negative arguments with anybody.
We are saying that we are determined to be men.
We are determined to be people.
We are saying that we are God's children.
And that we don't have to live like we are forced to live.

It means that we've got to stay together.
Now let us maintain unity.

April 3, 1968

For the full exerpt of this speech and many others, link to http://www.mlkonline.net/promised.html