"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.
This summer, I stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the same steps from which Dr. King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. It was inspiring to stand there in the footsteps of history, not only those of King, but of Lincoln.
Tomorrow, one day after the national observance of Dr. King's eightieth birthday, the forty-fourth President of our esteemed union of states will be sworn in. I know that President Obama is aware of the history that transpired on those steps and that it will be on his mind as he stands at the opposite end of the National Mall, looking over the heads of hundreds of thousands of his citizen constituents, at those steps, staring at the ghosts of King and Lincoln, catching a glimpse of the dreams that they dreamt for our nation, and dreaming new dreams for and with a resilient and tenacious people.
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