You could be distracted for instance this day by the events in Atlanta where their arguments over who owns, dr. King's name who owns the rights to the I Have a Dream speech who owns this and that and you could become distracted from the real purpose and ideal of social change of getting something done in America. If you paid attention to the news these days it would be so easy to become distracted by the indictment of Malcolm X's daughter for trying to allegedly killed Louis Farrakhan. You could say this again is so confusing. What does this mean to see the one time he rose held in such contention. What is it mean? You could be distracted and confused and again, you might be paralyzed paralyzed into inaction. So easy to become distracted. That's why I say thank you for today when we can focus so clearly on what we must do and if you go back just a short while ago and it still goes on it so easy to destroyDid by the really traumatizing events that are going on with the n-double-acp and you might say to yourself again. I don't understand. Where are we today in 1995? Who is the Civil Rights Movement? How is social activism to advance at this moment in our history when so much is going on that is distracting and confusing and my staff are energies and take away from our spirit. So that's why I say thank you God. Thank you for this moment. When all of that energy can come here with all of these people can come and speak out and read dedicate themselves to the ideals of dr. King and be so absolutely crystal clear and saying that his dream and his movement continue that we need that energy and we need that Focus. That's why it's so absolutely important. I think to understand the truth of what dr. King had to say after I wroteEyes on the prize people would come up to me and they would say, you know, man if dr. King were alive today, I'd be with it. I'd be Marching In the Streets. I'd be down with it. I know what was going on because then we would have a better kind of black leadership or they say a man if Malcolm was around today and we had speakers who would speak with that fire in that fewer than I'd be down with it. I'd know what to do or they say if it was the sixties at the times were different if it wasn't such a conservative era in America if the times were more like the 60s then I would be with it. Then I'd be in the street then I would be at the Forefront.But you know, it seems to me that in looking back. These people are somehow missing missing a key truth, but came from those times and I P truth. Is that when you look to that. You should not look at dr. King as a man who created the movement you should not look at that time as the embodiment and limits of the Civil Rights Movement. You should instead see that the Civil Rights Movement goes on today that the Civil Rights Movement continues that it continues in a different phase in a different era and you have to wake up and understand that the movement is not dead. It has evolved. It has changed and it requires each and every one of you to change with it to stay with it. If we are in fact the stated head as we approach The Next Century another Century of civil rights movement in American history because you seeDr. King spoke of a mountain top upcoming to a place where he could look out and see a better America see a better world see a better relationship with teen all of mankind see black and white working together to create a better Society but today in 1995 we to we to come to our own Mountaintop where we can look back where we can look back 40 years now and see that it has been 40 years since theLandmark Supreme Court ruling Brown versus Board of Education of broke-down legal segregation in the schools. We can look back and see 30 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act in the voting right that we can look back to 1968 look back and see the death of Martin Luther King and see what has come afterwards. We can look back and see so much that has passed and commemorate so many of those events, but from our Mountaintop from our precipice in history, we can also look forward and as we look forward we can see the storm of change we can see that this Society is in the midst of radical change today change that would daunting challenge. Dr. King himself changed its we see so great. We see the rapid amount of immigration in this Society changing what America is the very identity. We see the radical change in terms of the amount of people coming young people.Coming into the society born in poverty as never before and having to confront a life where they have to deal with poverty from day one. We can see in America today a society. We are by the end of this decade you will have more young hispanic young people then you will have young black people and the idea of what it means to be Black Or Hispanic in America is itself in change and you say to yourself. Where are we going in the midst of so much change when so much as challenging as challenging our very identity is black people are very identity As Americans when it comes to this idea of civil rights because it even challenges the notion of what civil rights is about in 1995. This is a difficult. But I tell you that when you consider the theme of today when you think about the notion of being a time for changeI would suggest to you that you come right back to Doctor Martin Luther King and come back to the idea of change being something that is born with it change being something that comes from the heart and the Soul something that would radiate from you because then I think you could come to understand that if change is going to come the change has the start right there right in your seat with you that that change must come first. Some people would tell you though. This is not the time to be a leader. They would tell you this is not the time to stand up. This is not the time to speak that if dr. King was alive today people would be shoving him aside people would say. Oh look at that old-timer. He's still hanging around still chasing TV cameras or people would say, what about his personal life? What about is income there be gossip and people say I don't want any of that for myself. Why would I want to stand up and be scrutinized and heckled and have to put up with all that nonsense at this time. I can tell you that it has to be at this time because we have a crying need for leadership today when we think about civil rights. We're talking about a crying need for leadership. In this era this era this era really is crying out for definition definition. That would be brought by great leaders recently. I was asked to help people who are on earthing a time capsule it we came from the early part of this century and they had in this time capsule things like mustard gas from World War 1. They had it in early edition of the crisis, which was part of the NAACP founded in 1909. They had in it reports reports of the events that led to the start of World War One of the Great Depression in the late twenties. And the question being put forward was what would we put in a time capsule that would capture this day 1995 for Generations Yet to Come What would tell people about us what the initial suggestions were things like computer chips and Nintendo games and fax machines. Fishing in a bottle the idea that science is making rapid progress, but I've got to tell you that it seemed to me that it didn't capture the essence the essence of what we should be about in 1995 because it seems to me the greatest challenge we face today is not scientific. It is not about the speed of communication. It is about communication itself. It is about relating to each other having each other understand ourselves that to me is the challenge of The Next Century. How did we talked with each other something so basic but something believe me that is so out of mode. So out of practice that we don't do and don't know how to do and that's why it seems to me that when we talked about. Dr. King we have to understand dr. King as an agent of change as someone who would advocate for more communication more of the idea of people growing and coalition. So that we can communicate so that we can achieve social change in America today because you know, dr. King himself was a man in the midst of change even at his death when he died. Dr. King was no longer fighting per say about getting people out of the back of the bus is he had fought for Rosa Parks he had going on and now dr. King at the time of his death was in Memphis in Memphis fighting for equal and fair wages for sanitation workers marching with them through the streets having second test with you gangs there. Come there from Chicago where he was fighting over the idea of residential segregation the rigid segregation that had held in and held in place by Mayor Daley and realtors in that City and seeing it as somehow limiting grading these ghettos that America has never been able to shuck America has never been able to get away from what he was taking his fight on. The new ramparts going in New Directions and from Memphis. He had planned to go to Washington to lead a Poor People's campaign to stand in front of the great legislators of our time the Congress and the Senate the presidency and say we cannot live in a society as wealthy is this and allow poverty and degradation to exist for so many people. That is the change that was in dr. King. That was the capacity to be forward-looking into seeing to understand the continuing demands of change. So as we talk together today about dr. King and about change. I hope that you can understand. It's so often now. Dr. King is dismissed and so many quarters as sort of a milquetoast character people don't see the dynamic revolutionary Spirit the spirit of change and dr. King people become cynical about. Dr. King may see him as being the embodiment of a sort of an officially endorsed black movement. They see him as a mass creation somehow he is palatable to the larger society that if you open a magazine this time of year in as you approach Black History Month, you can see advertisements for the largest corporations for McDonald's and AT&T and Xerox saying we have a dream remember Dr. King and you you look at it. Then you see a picture of a hamburger down in the corner or a picture of a Coke or a computer and you say to yourself. I don't know what dream they're having but it doesn't seem to be the same dream. I'm happy and you might become more cynical you might in your heart say what is this about? Who is this? Dr. King? What is dr. King about if these big companies the one that claimed him and you might say I want someone more radical more committed to social change more committed to the idea of revolutionising this society and lose touch therefore with the reality of a true revolutionary in doctor can't lose touch with the idea of someone who was not only about revolutionising this Society but willing to stand up at Great risk and speak about the evils of the Vietnam War and willing to stand up and beer the scorn of people in his own Community to speak about the evils of militarization and having the evil expanded and exported to another nation that to me is a symbol of a true revolutionary in a truly courageous, man, and we should never lose touch with that spirit that spirit. That is the true essence. Dr. King when we think about dr. King in 1995. In fact, I would ask you to lift your eyes for a moment from the reality of our lives in the United States and look overseas and see a reflection of dr. King if you will and Nelson Mandela to see the truth of a man who could be in prison for 27 years imprisoned so that he was cut off the even wearing his picture on a shirt. Was it legal printing his name in the paper was illegal repeating his name in public in a speech such as this would have been illegal and yet that man who was cut off comes out of prison after 27 years and his light shines brighter than ever. He becomes a personification not just of a movement within South Africa, but the personification of an International Freedom Movement. He becomes an inspiration to us in this Society. An inspiration to us that says that people who can be the victims of the worst depression can nonetheless nonetheless come out come out with a spirit of a building and love and go on and create because today Nelson Mandela stands as the president of a new and changed South Africa. That spirit that spirit that is so rare. And so So beyond our everyday life that Spirit of saying that we can go beyond that we can work with people who are formally our enemies that we can build we can create coalitions is a spirit of a man. It's the spirit of a doctor King and it's got to be the spirit that is in within you on this day as we celebrate and commemorate. Dr. King's memory because you know, dr. King when Montgomery happened in 1955 Dr. King spoke with a force that shook this country, but he spoke in such a way that people at first didn't hear him because people didn't know him they said who is this twenty-five-year-old this young man? Who is he to stand and speak to the country with this God force and I want you all to recall but it's not the case as so many might imagine the doctor King comes and lands on this Earth and somehow is immediately heralded as a great sea. All rights leader I want you to understand that even in Montgomery, dr. King was not known as a great leader before the Montgomery Bus Boycott, in fact when Rosa Parks is a r s i want you to know it's not dr. King who goes down to the jail to get her out it's an elderly man by the name of e d Nixon the former head of the sleeping car porters the former head of the n-double-acp chapter who gets called and he gets a white lawyer by the name of Clifford Durr to join him to go down to speak with the police and while they're down there they call out to a woman Joanne Robinson who have been an English teacher at Alabama State and she comes down and they get Miss Parks out of jail and Joanne Robinson says the e d Nixon, you know, I've been trying to get a bus boycott going here because what they're doing on the bus lines is wrong and I wonder if you could speak to some of the black ministers maybe we could use mrs. Parks arrest as the moment the inspiration to get something. For just one day. That's all I'm asking for just one day. And so Nixon said he would try and when he got back home, he made a call to a twenty-nine-year-old minister and I say 29 with a smile in my mind because that 29 year old someone I was think of is very elderly and that is Ralph Abernathy, but I guess we're all 2829 one time or no? Eddie gets back River at Abernathy on the phone and Reverend Abernathy says I'd like to help you. Mr. Nixon. He said but you know, I'm involved with some other things right now. He says why don't you try that young Minister that's just come to town that guy down at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Dixon table. Who's that? And he says, it's a reverend. Dr. King. Here's the phone number. Why don't you call him right now? Mason says, okay. I'll call him and he get Reverend, dr. King on the phone. And I want all of you who see King and somehow this man who came from another planet this kind of extraordinary individual given so much this man who must be so different than us. I want you to hear how human and how how ordinary his reaction is when he hears about what Nixon has to say. He says Mr. Nixon, you don't know he says but I've just been at this church barely a year and most people think I got the job cuz my dad he's a big-time preacher in Atlanta. They don't think I deserve to have his job. I think I'm too young. To be leaving such a large congregation. He said and you know, you don't know me but my wife's pregnant and she's mad at me cuz I'm working like the Dickens to try to make this church work all day long and at night. I don't really have time time to work on our personal relationship and go to classes in the birthing classes with her, you know, and he says in addition to that you call me, dr. King, but I want you to know I don't have my degree yet. I have to do my school work at night to finish my thesis and it's very hard. So I'm working on the church during the day working at my school work at night. My wife is on me. I don't think I have time for this right now, but I know my daddy want me to do something. Why don't you call me back some other time and Nixon listens to him and finally that I'll call you back two hours later. He calls them back. He gets them on the phone. He says Reverend King. I think you should get involved in Kingston. I'm glad you call back because you know, my daddy would want me to do something. What can I do to help you and Nixon says I'm glad to hear that Reverend can't cuz we got 800 people coming over your church tomorrow night and it look bad if you weren't involved. I tell you that story because in some sense it remind. But in the everyday to and fro of your own life when your under pressure when things are too busy for you when the children are on you where the job is on you where the car is broken or the bills are, and you say to yourself. I don't know where I could find it in myself to do more to get involved to give of myself. I hope that you understand the doctor King spark that is within you that says you can do it because dr. King came to that moment. And as we all know found himself found himself mounting a stage of national International even leadership found himself suddenly held up as the personification of a great movement found that his own family was threatened his house bomb, but somehow there was the resolve the courage in his soul. It said I must go on I see a larger Vision. I see a better day and dr. Kane came to represent. Something so large that he would be awarded eventually that Nobel Peace Prize because he saw something in the American Spirit in the world that didn't speak about people in Collision, but didn't speak about people competing for scarce resources that they don't speak about people weighing in Justice and saying I've suffered more than you instead. Dr. King spoke of a non-violent spirit that said, let me take your hand. Let me do what I can for you because that makes me a whole person that makes me truly a strong person that gives me inspiration to know that I can help you and that is my friends the inspiration of a Doctor Martin Luther King as We Gather here in 1995 as we come together and see so many young people in this place people who did not live through those days who know only if King from our mouths and I words We have to tell them the doctor King says you can that you have the power to create social change that you may live in a society that is large Coast to Coast thousands of miles. You may live in a society with TV being in every minute and trying to numb your spirit in your mind. You may live in a society where people grow confused and paralyzed argue over rap music argue over violence and videos and sexual content and somehow get distracted from the notion that they have personal power to create social change, but they lose touch with themselves. We can't let it happen. We shouldn't let it happen because that is to lose touch is to lose touch with dr. King. We have to understand and celebrate the idea of people like Someone that dr. King knew a young girl named Barbara John's Who lived in a small community called Prince Edward County Virginia? And when that young lady was going to school? Going to a school and I don't mean a school like Concordia. I don't mean a school like this with a roof and a floor. I mean Hut's huts with dirt floors dirt floors. That would turn thick with mud is the rain in Spain that girl finally said to her parents, you know, I don't think it's right for me to go to a school like this. I don't want to just grow up and be a sharecropper. I want to get an education. I think it's wrong of her parents a girl you must be crazy talking all this stuff. We didn't even have a school to go to this was the 1940s and they looked at and they said Barber you better get yourself back at school and stop talking all this nonsense. But Barbara was still angry. She could understand that the black children only went to school for a few hours a day until noon time. She could understand that the Blackstone only went to school in the months of November December January and February when they weren't crops to be harvested or crops to be put in the ground. She could understand that they weren't any books. And so she went back to school. But she went back with what I've come to think of it as fly plane. She went back and she took the principles most prized possession a little notepad that had his name embossed on it and she began scribbling little notes to All the teachers in the Shacks to bring the students outside for Special Assembly and when the students came outside, well, there was no principal there Barbara had told the principal that was some truants downtown at the bus station and he had gone off and so here come the students and here is Barbara this little skinny girl in this raggedy dress standing up in front of town. Look. This is wrong desegregated school, lets leave school right now and March down to the school board of town that segregated schools are wrong was sure enough. You can figure out the principal understands what's happened now, he sees the crowd outside and he comes running back and he grabs Barber they have a little tussle, but you know what? He says, they're go ahead go ahead finish what you have to say. And Barbara gets up and that girl finishes what she has to say and I want to tell you that some people actually walked away with her from school that day, but you know what when she got home that night it wasn't the case to her family and her parents and her community came around and said my God, what a wonderful young lady someone who's fighting for her education someone who cares deeply about social change. She got a weapon. Not only that some of the black teachers came and they said girl what's wrong with you the best job a middle-class person getting a segregated County teaching them schools. And all you're trying to do is ruin it for us. What's wrong with you and Barbara Crawford long and hard tears, but I want to tell you she didn't give up what she did was she when she made a collect call to New York to the NAACP legal defense fund and she gets people on the phone and she tells them she needs help and sure enough here. Come some help a few days later and Barbara's there at the train station and read it because she's been thrown out of school and she meets these lawyers and she shows them around she shows in the difference between the black schools in the whites. Will she bring them to understand what's happening until finally she hears his lawyers talking and what they're talking about is the train schedule because they're looking to see when the next train leaves and Barbara says, what are you guys talking about? There's so much to be done here and they said her Barber for us to get involved here be like pushing dollar bills down a rat's hole be a waste. There's no liberal White Community here. There's no moderate black community the black communities not even behind you. What are we supposed to do? We need to go where the cases are better and Barbers that will let me show you where the train station is and she cry long and hard tears once more. But once again, she didn't give up this time. She made a collect call to the n-double-acp and where did talk to the Secretary of the lawyers. She insisted on Talking To The Man In Charge a man that we've come to know as a former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and she gets Marshall on the phone the first thing she says to him as you know, those lawyers you sent down here. You should fire Thunder. No damn good. You should send me some help send me some people who will help me and sure enough Marshall this man in this big office building in New York. Listen to this little girl in rural Virginia and since help but I want you to know that that case becomes one of the five cases that collectively are known to our nation is Brown versus Board of Education those landmark Supreme Court case of the broke apart segregation in the public schools. And when people talk about that case they often talk about Earl Warren who was the chief justice or they talk about Thurgood Marshall, but from me I'm always reminded of this little girl Barbara John's who was willing to stand up and exercise that Spirit or challenging the Society of saying something is wrong here and I need to confront it and doing it in a constructive nonviolent meaningful way. But here's the kicker to that story the kicker is that that young woman had to be sent out of her community? She couldn't live there any longer. Where is she said? She sent to live with her Uncle her uncle was a minister in Montgomery, Alabama. His name was Vernon Johns Vernon johns with at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. So there she goes to Vernon johns, but guess what Vernon Johns isn't self involved in trying to change the society in Montgomery and pretty soon. He loses his job, but who replaces him who comes in his place? Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King jr. Comes with even more social change in even a greater commitment to the idea of Reinventing America of making America new and better and more faithful to her pledge to fulfill the rights of all men and that is a sense is the really the message of today. But each and every one of us may have our struggles we may feel put on weave may feel like there's so much to do and so much going on in our lives, but you have to look to the Longview you have to look to generations of struggle. You have to understand that what you do today May pay off tomorrow for your children or your grandchildren, you have to understand the change is constant and that you have to be comfortable with that change you have to be willing to work because believe me you never know what's inside. You don't know the capacity. That's within that is truly the message that Comes with a doctor King. It's the message that Rings through time and time again. So when people say to me they say why did you call that book eyes on the prize? I tell them it comes from an old gospel song and the song goes keep your eyes on the prize. Hold on. Hold on. I know the one thing I did right with the day. I started to fight. Hold on and what I'm saying to all of you Send all of you this afternoon on The Day of the Doctor king would have turn 66 years of age. What I'm saying to all of you today is that you have to understand that within you beats the heart of Martin Luther King in this generation that within you are to be found the wishes and the will and the courage of dr. King in 1995 that your hands your hands that would reach out and teach a child how to read that would confront the problems of an adequate public schools that would deal with the problems of a door infirmities and problems of Health in the communities that need Healthcare. Those are the hands of dr. King that those of you who would reach out and build coalitions with your Indian brothers or with Hispanics and Asians. Those are the hands of dr. King that when we talked about dealing with illiteracy and taking time. To go and teach a child how to read so that that child can grow up and support a family and become politically empowered. Those are the hands of dr. King that is who you are. You are ears to the richest Legacy on Earth each and every one of you has a grand dividend coming because each and every one of you are ears to the legacy of dr. Martin Luther King jr. Thank you very much.