Today is the 20th anniversary of the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday--he would have been 77 yesterday--and no doubt it'll be the source of much back-patting by some over how far we've come and much hand-wringing by others over how far we've yet to go. I'm of both minds simultaneously, so you'll have to look elsewhere for definitive Deep Thoughts on progress and/or injustice.
I'm simply marking the day by listening to King's I Have a Dream speech (streaming MP3, as well as a transcript), delivered on August 28th, 1963, in front of the Lincoln Monument in Washington, DC. Nearly forty-three years later...it leaves me inspired by how far we've come and shamed by how far we've yet to go.
(Thanks to American Rhetoric for making this and hundreds of other historic speeches available.)
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