An Alternate Witness

In these days of bloodshed, blockade and brutality, and in this time of happiness, honored promises and hope, I offer the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his 1964 Nobel Prize acceptance speech:

I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeing to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered. And only yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because they offered a sunctuary to those who would not accept segregation....

I believe that even amid today's motor bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land.

"And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid."

I still believe that we shall overcome.

Let us recall that it was his hope that drove Rev. King, his hope and that of those who believed him that ultimately triumphed over centuries of oppression, even genocide, of the black man, and his hope that allowed Barack Obama to be where he is today. Since the beginning of Senator Obama's campaign for president, the slogan "Audacity of Hope" was derided as an empty phrase meant to obscure a lack of focus, a dearth of policy. But we believed in him; he made us hopeful after 8 long years of secrecy and deception. If Dr. King could speak of hope in the face of all the violence that still faced the people whose champion he was, then we should be able to retain that audacity of hope that has inspired us thus far. President Obama is only in his first week of office; let's not judge him yet!