Martin Luther King Jr. "I Have A Dream...." Speech, 50 years later Still causing new Inspiration!


 
50  years ago on this day, Martin Luther King gave his “I have a Dream…” speech. And I realized I have never heard it in its entirety. So I listened to it twice. It actually painted a vision in my mind of how things really were. It was like I was watching a video as I was listening. Just 50 years ago, black people couldn’t use the same bathrooms at white people. Just 50 years ago, black people couldn’t drink out of the same water fountain as white people. Just 50 years ago, Black people couldn’t walk in the front door of a food joint. They had to pick up their food from the back door. Those owners didn’t want other white people to see them in their restaurant but they still wanted their money. Just 50 years  ago, the circumstances were so bad that it took 250,000 people both black and white to stand up against a government and demanded change. The overwhelming attribute that jumps out to me about this is courage. It took courage for those black people to miss work and potentially be fired by their employer and put themselves in danger just for being there. It took courage for those white people that were there, who potentially faced exile, ridicule, hatred and possibly death for standing up with black people. It took courage for Martin Luther King Jr. to be the leader behind this gathering of people. I can only imagine how much more in danger his life became after becoming the face of change, equality and desegregation.  It took courage for all of those people to decide to continue their push for freedom because the speech was just a beginning. Every person had to follow that with action until everything in that speech came into manifestation. That was just 50 years ago. Both of my parents are in their 50’s and I’m 27. I was born in wynne, Arkansas where there were railroad tracks that the black people lived on one side and the white people lived on the other. So this inequality, open hatred, open segregation, minimal opportunity for education, slum living, racial discrimination, mental oppression, and constant fear only missed me by 23 years. Most of you reading this will be in the same age group, think about it. It only missed you by 20+ years. Even the white people, your lives you live today with black people as friends, interracial relationships, going to school with black people, having the freedom to choose who you want to talk to, hang with, or fall in love with was not accepted just 20+ years before you were born. The “I have a Dream…” Speech explains exactly what our lives would have been had we been born just 20+ years earlier. I strongly recommend that you become aware of the difference in opportunity that you have today compared to your parents growing up. Know that your parents telling you to “Go to College” means more than just going to school. It meant that they grew up in a time where something we look at so casually was, pretty much, an impossibility for them. I say that because many of us have a dream to be something great but we cloud it with doubt, excuses, and Lack of action. I strongly recommend that we get an understanding of the courage displayed in, around, and following this speech. Through that we can recognize the blessings, positions and opportunities  we have been given living in this time period. Then we can overlook the excuses, the doubt, or being stagnate and  boldly and successfully follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther King and those 250,000 people, to DREAM, STEP UP, AND TAKE ACTION!