- It's important to remember
what Dr. Martin Luther King lived for,
what he fought for, and what he died for.
In his "I Have a Dream"
speech, which happened in 1963
on August 28th,
he talked about the
promissory note of America.
The American Dream embedded
in the Constitution
and the Declaration of Independence.
- This nation will rise up,
live out the true meaning of it's creed.
We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal.
(crowd applauding)
- He spoke of his dream.
That one day his children would be judged,
not on the color of their skin,
but based on the content
of their character.
I think that dream is important today
as it ever was before,
particularly as the politics
of intersectionality
and the silos that demagogues
want to divide us by
based on the color of our skin
our ethnicity, our religion, our sex,
our sexual preference,
that's not what Martin Luther
King was talking about.
The opposite is true.
We're all equal, we're
all looking for a place
where we can be treated the same
by the laws of the land.
It's also important to
remember all the things
that happened leading up to that speech.
All the violence, the lynchings
and the police dogs and the fire hoses.
Throughout all of that, Dr.
King preached a strategy
of non-violence.
It was a moral imperative
but it was also a practical understanding
of the way that you teach people
through your own behavior.
- The end is reconciliation
and the creation of the beloved community.
We are not seeking to
annihilate the opponent
but to convert him.
And this is why we follow non-violence.
- We could learn a
little bit of that today
as violence seems to be an accepted method
for political change and resistance.
Dr. King would disagree.
