We Shall Overcome

Tomorrow marks the 47th anniversary of one of the most important moments in our nation's history, when the great Dr. Martin Luther King delivered the soul stirring speech "I Have a Dream" under the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial.

It was a fitting spot for such a speech. Abraham Lincoln himself basically gave birth to the civil rights movement by taking a stand against the institution of slavery and using his office as President to set free those who would be kept in bondage just for the color of their skin.

It is something many modern Americans can probably never fully fathom. We cannot know what it was like not to have the right to our own lives, to go where we want to go, to do what we want to do or say the things we want to say.

People *think* they know, but they can't ever really truly know what it meant to be considered property rather than a person.

Even Sarah Palin, who feels that she has some understanding of having her rights circumvented simply because the court of public opinion has harshly judged her, cannot understand what it once meant for women to not hold political office, not own property or have any vote aside from their husband.

For minorities these rights were hard won. In the case of LGBT Americans, these rights are still an ongoing battle that has not yet been won despite minor victories in limited states.

None of us can probably understand what it meant to own property that was taken away by newly formed courts who spoke in a language we could not understand. We cannot know what it was like that a person of another race won their right to dominate simply because they were the majority.

Despite the rally cry against prayer in school or the fear the Bible will be outlawed, we really don't understand what it is like as the majority Christian faith to have our religion vilified in the court of public opinion to the point we can no longer build a church due to a vehement outcry.

The Civil Rights movement was to restore these grievous wrongs for Americans of every race, religion or gender. It is meant to restore the honor of our country's fundamental principle that *all* Americans are created equal. These are not rights that are up to the vote of the majority of the public (such as California's Prop 8) - they are inalienable.

The will of the voter should never usurp the constitution. If it does, even once, the entire fabric of our nation will unravel like a cheap rug and *everyone's* rights will be at risk.

As a nation we have made huge strides to fix where this structure has broken. We have fought for the vote of all of us to be counted, the right for all of us to have a voice.

We still have a long way to go to reach Dr. King's prophetic words that aspire to a world that sees beyond color and creed to judge each person by their individual worth.

In Dr. King's era, being black meant you were separated, disdained and oppressed in a very legal, socially acceptable way. Those of us in our generation cannot understand what it meant to sit at the back of the bus, to be turned away from restaurants, schools and churches because of the color of our skin.

We cannot understand what it meant to try and drink from a fountain that wreaked of a bigot's urine, whose illogical hatred just because you were "different" was stoked by public acceptance.

We cannot comprehend what it meant to have crosses burned on our yards, or to be tied to cars and drug for miles for nothing more than the way we were born.

We think of the word "lynch" the way we think of the word "crucifixion". We know what it means by definition, but we can never truly appreciate the horror of the act because we have never had to face the looming reality that it could happen to us.

And it is a good thing we cannot fully understand these travesties. It means we've definitely gone beyond those dark times. We've made great strides and we've done it by following the example of the great Dr. King - by fighting hatred with love. By fighting fear with enlightenment.

This is what transforms the world. This is what will inevitably bring peace.

And we've still got a long way to go, as any LGBT or Muslim American will tell you.

It tears at my soul that someone such as Glenn Beck can take a day such as the anniversary of this great speech to try and rewrite the civil rights movement. He wants to "reclaim" it as a white American who does not truly understand what it means to be oppressed. He does it not because he wants to see this country better; he wants to see it the way it used to be.

It should never go back to the way it used to be.

Despite how many people show up to Beck's demonstration tomorrow, I know in my heart that it will never tarnish the dream that Martin Luther King had, and that so many of us still aspire to.

Hatred and fear will never change the course that was set in place that day. It is a river that flowed out of the childhood of our nation as we were, as Lincoln said, "test[ed] whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."

They are as they have always been just sticks and rocks that we have to navigate around, but I promise you - our river will still run uninterrupted.

That is what liberty is to me. That is what justice is to me. That is what America is to me.

The only way this powerful movement can change is if we change it. If we turn the tide to become like that of our detractors through hate and fear and go back on our very own principles, then we lose what this country represents. If we replace that love and that faith and that hope with things like fear and hatred and bigotry, then we are never going to be truly free. We're just going to chain ourselves to that fear and hate each other because of it.

This works for the likes of Glenn Beck, whose only interest is his own bottom line. He doesn't care about America. In true capitalist fashion he has found a niche to fill by the outcry of those who are afraid. He's not leading a movement to get others to fight for the common good. He's getting a bunch of individuals to fight for themselves out of their own selfish gain so that he will always have a platform from which to spew his endless vitriol.

That's not America. That's not the United States.

Like Abraham Lincoln quoted from the Bible itself, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

Therefore the challenge is simply this. Today look beyond your own circumstances, see the world not as it was or as it is, but as it can be. Do one thing, just one thing, to make it the world that Dr. King spoke so eloquently about in his passionate speech.

Today let that dream live on in you. Do this by refusing to respond to hate and finding your courage to live in love. Love for ourselves, our fellow man and for our great nation.

And know that as you do, no matter what else is done to us or around us, We Shall Overcome.