DEAR READERS: Jan.18 we paid tribute to a great American, Dr.Martin Luther King.
It’s hard to believe that a quarter of a century has gone by since Dr.King was shot to death at age 39 a martyr of the civil rights movement.
Jan.15 would have marked his 64th birthday, although we officially celebrate his birth on a Monday.
Dr.King represents the ideal of Civil disobedience for Civil Rights his work has been carried on by people of all colors and faiths including the Sikhs.
As the expatriate Sikh community looks at the future, the dreams of Dr.King are applicable to the situation both here (the U.S.) and abroad.
Each of us must do our part to facilitate that dream, so that we can breathe “Free at Last”.
King’s principles of nonviolence were based upon the teachings of Christianity.
He was propelled to international prominence by his eloquent pleas for social justice and his persistence in the face of violent opposition, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
What follows are excerpts from the now famous speech he delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on Aug.28, 1963:
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the te meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. ‘And this will be the day …when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, ‘My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee] sing. Land was my fathers died land of the Pilgrims’ pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.’
“And when this happens…when we allow freedom to ring from every village and every hamlet very state and every city. We will be able to speed up that day when all of God” children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last Thank God Almighty we are free at last” If we have learned anything since the death of Dr.King, it is that there is no such thing as “benign™ neglect.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 22, 1993
