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It isn't often we get to praise the mainstream media on these boards, but appreciation for Peter Jennings and the staff of ABC News must be paid for devoting an hour of primetime television to honoring this watershed day in U.S. Civil Rights history - the March on Washington. It was well done, with invaluable commentary from some of the greatest leaders and spokespeople of our lifetimes. As a student of history, I can assure you that nothing beats a firsthand source.
I was born 4 years after this event. I spent my formative childhood years in the south, in the shadow of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, cited in his very speech.
Unknown in my childhood innocence was the tears and blood shed for the equality and freedom of Americans so recently in my own backyard. Equality and freedom denied, inhibited, and repressed for some people just because...
Just because of their skin. Just because "they" look... different.
It seems foreign, almost surreal to a point, that we as a species find so many ways to hate one another...
And deny ourselves the simple dictum to love one another.
Differences, no matter how superficial, or no matter how deep, can be difficult to overcome. It can take work. The rewards for doing so - for reaching out and daring to learn something new, or fascinating, or illuminating, about each other - can be great indeed.
Why some choose what may be to them the easier path, the path of least resistance, is worth pondering. Too often this crooked road to shun differences is borne of fear, or anger, and ultimately their child, hate - and the answers seem destined to remain elusive and fleeting.
The documentary showed with only seconds apart, people at their best - and worst. Bombings, threats, arson, and snarling faces contrasted with people walking upright with dignity, people exercising the freedoms secured in the Bill of Rights. People smiling with the joy of mutual respect, association, and earnestly pursuing their dream. Our dream. People of eloquence and pride marching with the greatest unity of purpose.
The television's crisp monochromatic images of twoscore years ago are evidence that this nation has people of great courage and strength, of indomitable character and will, who will come together peaceably and with dignity, to secure the freedom considered our birthright in our republic.
We must draw lessons from not so long ago, and summon our own wills, our own deep reserves of courage and fortitude to fight for what is right for all of us. To overcome the infringements on civil rights sanctioned by fear and insecurity these past few years by the most regressive regime to hold sway in our memory. In what seems like some of the darkest days of our nation, we have, as we always have, only ourselves to secure the blessings of liberty, and to let freedom ring in America.
Let freedom ring.
Keep The Dream alive.
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