Perhaps Dr. King won't mind if I include a brief quote from his book without permission. This passage seemed to speak to the times:
"We have been seared in the flames of suffering. We have known the agony of being the underdog. We have learned from our have-not status that it profits a nation little to gain the whole world of means and lose the end, its own soul. We must have a passion for peace born out of wretchedness and the misery of war. Giving our ultimate allegiance to the empire of justice, we must be that colony of dissenters seeking to imbue our nation with the ideals of a higher and nobler order. So in dealing with our particular dilemma, we will challenge the nation to deal with its larger dilemma.
"This is the challenge. If we will dare to meet it honestly, historians in future years will have to say there lived a great people - a black people - who bore their burdens of oppression in the heat of many days and who, through tenacity and creative commitment, injected new meaning in the veins of American life."
May Dr. King's spirit help us all to do well in the coming years, for, as our new president reminds us, we must all pitch in and do our bit to recover not only our economy, but our self respect, our ethics, and our integrity.
