Shakespeare’s Sister today reposts one of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr’s best speeches in honor of the holiday. There’s not a man or a woman alive today who’s as good a speaker as he was. We have some gifted speakers, no doubt, but none with quite the combination of fire and poetry as he.
It’s a fun game to conjure up a ghost from our past and ask, “What would So-And-So think about today’s world?” I’m not foolish enough to put words into MLK’s mouth, but I’m pretty sure he would not be happy with the world today.
But the important thing is that Dr King was not a pessimist. Look at that speech again. Those are the words of someone who deeply believes that tomorrow will be better than today. If in 1963, Dr King could look at an America deeply racist and divided, and see a better future, then we here in 2005, with so many gains made since that day, should be able to see a brighter future too.