A quite amazing read. How Many Folks That Proclaim His Name Have Ever..... read this?

We have waited for more that 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet like speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking, "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored" when your first name becomes "Nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when your are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

With a way to go on both sides, thank God we have come as far as we have. I can't imagine trying to gain the right to enjoy a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.

And in his closing statement....

If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities,

I truly wish those "dark clouds of racial prejudice would soon away" too. And that the "deep fog of misunderstanding would be lifted from our fear-drenched communities". Boy..... sadly, don't we have a long ways to go on this one.

and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Gosh.. I won't hold my breath. What a shame we live in such polarizing times. Like Dr King alludes to, recognizing that without a common brotherhood in God, we may never experience the love and brotherhood of each other, nor the beauty it would project on our great nation.

To bad this message isn't followed today, and what a shame his message has been bastardized over the years. Not unlike the Church in many ways. I particularly took great interest in how he chastised the "white moderates" and will reflect on where I might have stood during those days and how I view race relations today. I look at relations today and wonder if there is any hope for a........

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In regards to Democrats, Republicans, gangs, and other scads of coterie Kool-Aide drinkers; Remember this..... Eagles Don't Flock