Because it still matters, watch this video of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, delivered at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. And as you watch, try to hear it as the people heard it then: not yet knowing what message King would deliver that day, not yet knowing that he would electrify the nation, but feeling that lightning as it struck. Try to forget that you know that “I have a dream” is coming, and then feel its power when it does.
And then, once you’ve let it wash over you, think about the text and ask yourself two questions: 1) What in the speech is true and good and just as a vision for our society? and 2) To what extent has that truth and goodness and justice been accomplished?
Let freedom ring.