Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
Fifty years ago today, before I was born, when my dad was starting his senior year of high school, the historic March on Washington took place.
Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.
There was not a single woman who spoke that day. The only women at the microphone were singing. As MLK said, "1963 is not an end, but a beginning."
Two months prior, Medgar Evers had been shot in the back in his own driveway.
In two more weeks, white supremacists will bomb a black church building on Sunday morning and kill four little girls. Somehow, white America will be shocked. The killers will walk free, even though they were known on the day of the crime. Only one will ever be convicted of the crime, some 38 years later.
In a few more months, the President will be gunned down in his motorcade.
But the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 sprang from it all, although the Voting Rights Act was gutted by the Supreme Court just this summer.
When he delivered his stirring speech about meeting evil with good, King could not know he would be assassinated in less than five years.The violent silencing of this most eloquent broker of peaceful change may have had a greater impact on the coming generations than we can ever know.
Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
and again and again.
You know my soul looks back and wonder
How I got over
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