Today, we remember one of the greatest men to have ever walked this earth. As an American, few can hold a candle to him. He sought equal rights for all, he fought for nonviolence, and among all this he was a preacher. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. hopefully will be remembered by all Americans for many years to come and, we hope, that his dream may be fulfilled. From the moment he was born to the moment he was assassinated on that hot April morning in 1968, Dr. King also practised what he preached. I encourage all of you who read this to look up many of Dr. King's sermons on YouTube. He was an immaculate preacher who could grip your attention with the mountains and valleys of his voice. In a sermon called "But If Not", he tells all of us to have the same faith that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did when they disrespected Nebuchadnezzar's order to pray to his golden statue. To have a "though faith" and not an "if faith", meaning to always believe in God no matter how well your life is going. Dr. King also preached civil disobedience, which he says if the human law is out of order with the moral law, people ought to break the law. People have a duty to break laws if they go against our morals, and Dr. King was a master at constructively breaking the law. There were countless times in which he took beatings from police officers, although he was being peaceful. He wrote his famous "Letter From the Birmingham Jail" on a brown paper bag that he had smuggled to him, and was able to sneak it out of the jailhouse also. Of course, Dr. King is most well known for his dream, which we are still waiting to come true. But his dream will not come true without great suffering from the righteous. He suffered, as did all the other fighters for civil rights, as did the early Christians martyrs, and as did Jesus Christ. King had said that "a person who has not found something so near and dear to them that they would die for, then they are unfit to live" (This is a paraphrase from the "But If Not" sermon). Let us make what we die for be righteousness, kindness, and justice, as both Dr. King and Jesus did. Despite the several challenges that usually face those with good intentions, I have faith that his dream will come true. The epitaph on the stone right below the balcony where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, a quote from Genesis 37 says, "They said one to another, 'Behold, here cometh the dreamer. Let us slay him and we shall see what will become of his dreams.'" But those who have worked against Dr. King's dream will be shocked to see that his dream, as did Joseph's, will come true.
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