RANDY ECONOMY: MY WORLD: LIVING THE DREAM: Today we all reflect on the life of The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Are you living your "dream?" Share you "Dreams" on my blog!

By Randy Economy
www.Economy4ABC.Blogspot.com
Monday, January 16, 2011
After Midnight

Cerritos, CA

Cover of Martin Luther King, Jr.Today we will reflect on the life and times and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am blessed to have actually lived to have watched many of his accomplishments as a young child while I was living in Gardena. I was eight years old when he was murdered.

Martin Luther King, Jr., taught all of us to "live our dreams" and that all men are "created equal" and to stand up for social injustice and equality for all.

Thank you Dr. King for making my life special. Today, I want everyone to attend a King Day Celebration in your community or hometown. Go on-line and learn more about his life. Remember to dream your dreams each and every day. Life is way too short. Breath. Love. Remember.

These are some of the amazing highlights of from his "I HAVE A DREAM" speech that occurred on August 28, 1963 at the Mall in Washington, DC. Rev. King was killed by sniper James Earl Ray on April 4, 1968, while standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.'

* "In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men - yes, black men as well as white men - would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'"

* "It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual."

Image via Wikipedia
* "The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people. For many of our white brothers as evidenced by their presence here today have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone."

* "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"

* "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

* "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood."

* "This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day."

Image by akiey via Flickr

Image via Wikipedia* "Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."
* "Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring—when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"