“So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.  Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.  Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.  Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado.  Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.  But not only that.  Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.  Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.  Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountain side.  Let freedom ring…

When we allow freedom to ring–when we let it ring from every city 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, Great God a-mighty, We are free at last.”

From “I HAVE A DREAM…”–Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, March on Washington 1963

The year was 1963, I was two months away from finishing my rather lackluster, but fun, high school career.  Dr. King organized  a peaceful “March on Washington” to bring light to the continuing plight of the Negro in our society.  John Lewis was at his side that day, as he was so often, and the Washington Mall was packed with marchers from every state in our union.  It was an incredible sight and the start of a day that will forever have a place in the history books of our great country.  Dr. King referred to this day as “…the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.”  I think that description still holds true.

“I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulation.  Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells.  Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality.  You have been the veterans of creative suffering.”

It had been one hundred years since Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the Negro from the chains of slavery.  Dr. King used this day to report on the progress made since that famous document was signed into history. 

“This momentous decree is a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.  It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.  But 100 years later the Negro still is not free.  One hundred years later the life of the Negro is still badly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.  One hundred years later the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.  One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land.  So, We’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.”

It has been forty-eight years since Dr. King delivered his famous speech to an aching world.  Have we progressed any in these forty-eight years relative to equality and justice for all–the years that make up our time living with the “flames of withering injustice.”  Are we satisfied with our progress?

With the events of the past couple of weeks in Washington DC and around our many states where “freedom rings” we seem to be stepping back in time, maybe a time even before March 1963.

Today, let us all put down our pen and paper, our phones, our zooms, our strategic business thoughts, and pay respect to one of the most inspiring leaders of our time.  I keep Dr. King’s “Dream” speech in my basket on my desk.  I cried when I read it in 1963 and still get choked up today reading it from start to finish.  His chosen words were so powerful and, most unfortunately, they still ring true today.

Tomorrow will come soon enough.  Today, let Dr. King lead all to the freedom we all cherish.

“I have a dream today…I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low.  The rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight.  And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.  This is our hope.  This is the faith that I go back to the South with.  With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.  With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords or our nation into a beautiful symphony of brother hood.  With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”

PEOPLE

Ron