President Obama stepped on Wednesday into the space where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once stood and summoned his iconic dream of a colorblind society in a celebration of a half- century of progress and a call to arms for the next generation. On a day of overcast skies and misty rain, tens of thousands of Americans — black, white and every shade in between — returned to the site of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech to listen to the nation’s first black president reframe the mission for a new era. “To dismiss the magnitude of this progress, to suggest as some sometimes do that little has changed, that dishonors the courage and the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years,” Mr. Obama said as Dr. King’s relatives, compatriots and admirers watched. “But we would dishonor those heroes as well to suggest that the work of this nation is somehow complete. “The arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice,” the president added, adopting a line from Dr. King, “but it doesn’t bend on its own. To secure the gains this country has made requires constant vigilance, not complacency.”
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 22:16:37 +0000
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