Doing Justice to Dr. King's Dream

I have a dream that every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places shall be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.

These words hung on a banner at the front of the auditorium in the public school where I taught for three years. They are taken from Dr. King's famous I have a Dream speech. What struck me in those days was the hollowing out of Dr. King's dream. He dreamed of what Isaiah saw: the revelation of the glory of God. Yet though these words hung in my public school, Dr. King's vision of civil rights had been extracted from the context in which he saw it.

If we are to honor Dr. King, we must honor that which he believed. If at some point we disagree, we must critique him, but not pretend that he stood for something other than what he did.

May the vision of the glory of God make us as courageous for justice and righteousness as it did Dr. King.