I Have a Dream

Did you know that this speech almost did not happen?  But fate would not have it any other way.  This speech was meant to be heard, was meant to be televised, was meant to stir hope in people, was made to make people move into action.  Martin Luther King did not come to the March for Jobs and Freedom to talk about his Dream, he had another speech prepared but someone shouted and prompted him to tell us about his Dream.

The Dream was a sermon that he had told his congregation before, but it wasn’t what he was going to share with those people on that day.

But fate would not have it any other way.  At the prompting of that person, Martin Luther King modified his speech and shared with the world his Dream.  A dream of equality and love for ALL, not just for whites, not just for blacks, or Hispanics or Asians but for ALL.  The Dream that someone will be judged by their character and not by the color of their skin.  A simple dream but one that until today we still struggle to bring to reality.

Don’t get me wrong! We have come leaps and bounds from that fateful day on August 28, 1963, but we still have long ways to go.  We are not there.

Let’s use today not as an off day, but as a day to look inside and see how we can bring Martin Luther King’s speech alive in our lives.

Are we teaching our children to love others as oppose to hate?  Do our actions match our teachings?

When we stop looking or referencing at color and instead see each other as humans, that’s when we will truly be colorblind and we will be living The Dream.

***PS from Joa 2023: I am keeping this here to show how I came to unlearn this harmful ideology; not acknowledging color or race strips that person of everything that comes with it. It strips them of the beautiful inheritance and the atrocities that other people inflict because of it. So while I use to believe in color blindness, I no longer do. I see color, I respect it, and I acknowledge that we all deserve dignity and respect.