There's a lot of talk about "I Have A Dream" today. But for some reason, I am called back to the following...
UPDATE: Found a better version.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Holy shit that speech always gives me chills. Very appropriate for today.
Yeah, that's the speech I turned to as well. For whatever reason, though, after all the music and speeches and the swearing in itself (during which I teared up a little), reading this is what made me break down and sob. The Herbert column is pretty good too.
Great choice. Love the fire.
I am drawn back to the moment when Julie Andrews embraced and kissed Harry Belafonte on the cheek in German TV and I knew I had seen something special. I do not remember why I knew it, what I had read beforehand. But guessing from the usual behaviour of the German press it was probably something that it was daring that they would sing a duet on stage but I remember distinctly that I held my breath when they embraced on top of it. After all if already singing together was daring how daring then must be embracing - and why? nobody gave an anderstandable explanation for it - why was Josephine Baker OK and Harry Belafonte not ...
or another midnight show on TV and Sammy Davis jr. singing Ol' Man River in a way that all the pain and anger got across so strongly that I had cold shivers of fear and compassion running down my spine
Hopefully at least as far as this special pain is concerned the world is going to become a better place
And as he spoke those words, a six-year-old boy sat in a classroom in Indonesia.
not to be corny, or anything, but those words, that scene, is always gonna give me a knot in my throat. that's americanism and heroism and romanticism and courage and just, being a soldier for God, all balled up into one. it's one of the all-time greatest battle cries. for obvious reasons, as a boy dreaming of boyish glories, I would always be reminded of Gandhiji when i heard it; i'd think of this pair of men and think, "those are real men, whom i should try to emulate." easier said than done.
-sv
'Madras bred Jersey fed', by way of Flushing of course
Freedom isn't free.
Unspeakably beautiful and appropriate. Thanks for that.
The right video, without a doubt. Forty-years, seven months, and one day later, in Grant Park, the echo was the line that made we shake: "We as a people will get there."
Yea man. I sorta think we should take Dyson up on his call to put IHAD away for 10 years and look at Martin's other work. This is my second favorite Martin speech. My favorite is Where Do We Go From Here. It's the one I turn to every year.
His sacrifice has served us well....on the shoulder of giants.
Great call -- I was also thinking of that today, specifically the part in the video. But also the "but I wouldn't stop there" passage -- the idea of hard-won progress over time, and the idea that even as we face difficult challenges today, it's those very same challenges that make it worthwhile to live in these times -- those ideas seem especially relevant on this day and I think I heard echoes of those same themes listening to Obama's inauguration.
I just landed in Memphis from NY so I can feel the resonance of this clip in the city around me but if you think that the dream is different from the experience of the mountain top than you may be missing the deeper level of how profound it was, and is, to willingly and knowingly make the sacrifice of one's life for the promise of a dream.
To Amos, who says he can't shake the image of Obama wearing one of those sweaters: Bill Cosby says, "Neither can I."
David Brokaw
Public Relations Rep. for Bill Cosby