It’s been fifty years since Martin Luther King Jr. made his now notorious ‘I have a dream’ speech. Tens of thousands of black Americans descended on Washington DC in support of the calls for peace from the unofficial leader of the Civil Rights Movement.
As my home nation continues to put up divisions across society and the so-called developed nations of the world ready themselves for a war against Syria, the words and ideas put forth from King that day at the Lincoln Memorial have somewhere become skewed, misunderstood or misappropriated along the way. Sure, who doesn’t want freedom? But at what cost?
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!
Martin Luther King Jr
The quest for freedom hasn’t changed throughout the years although the methods employed by our “leaders” most certainly has. There are still a bunch of us out there with a belief and a dream that anything is possible. Creatives, liberal thinkers, artists, musicians, pacifists and those of us too strong-willed to let anyone tell us where our boundaries are or when to stay within them.
While the entire world seems to be up in arms with non-news about girls performing oral sex at festivals or some talentless pop-tart shaking her ass in a music video, we should remember we’re tearing ourselves apart as we sit back and flick through the channels. Let’s take this back to when music meant something. Take this playlist, share it with a friend. ~Share it with someone of a different creed, colour, religion or whatever. Let’s listen to some good music. Let’s celebrate the memory of Dr. Luther King. Let freedom ring.