Today is the celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, a champion for civil rights, equality, and unity. The following is an excerpt from his August 28, 1963, “I Have a Dream” speech:

“And when this happens, when we allow freedom to 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!”

The Past, Present, and Future

The other night, I watched the movie Glory Road. Briefly, it focuses on Don Haskins, the coach at Texas Western who, in 1966, put together the first team with only three white players, the rest black. Although the team was ridiculed throughout the season, they made the NCAA championships and won.

I would like to say that equality has improved greatly since then. In fact, I believe it has in many ways. But, although I have honestly never witnessed racism (or really segregation in general) first-hand, there is most certainly still a residual flame of hatred burning in some people. We might not know their reasons. They may think they have good reasons. But (to put it bluntly) segregation in any form is still wrong and is never acceptable.

Today, I think we are even closer to achieving Dr. King’s goal of complete equality and unity than ever before. As Thomas J. Peters said, “…leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.”. Let’s keep Dr. King’s dream alive.