Beyond the oft’ repeated phrase

Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech holds the image and the words that usually spring to mind on this day and in any reference to the leader who fought for basic human rights.

But how many people today know what Dr. King said in that speech? The civil rights leader was explicity Christian. And his purpose and message was grounded in an explicity Christian commitment. Remember that the SCLC he helped found, and served as the first president, was the “Southern Christian Leadership Conference.”

Here’s some of the latter part of the speech.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

How are we living that out today?

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

We need leaders, white and black, to hold these values and speak with clarity.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Does anyone remember that at the end of this speech, Dr. King invoked the name of the Lord? That he anchored it in faith?

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. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together.

We aren’t praying together in public places today, are we?

And when this happens, When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

It’s still a dream.