Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Dr. King to President Obama: Now Is the Time to Make Real the Promises of Democracy

On this historic inauguration day, words from the past ring in my own ears.

These are the words of Dr. Martin Luther King on 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC:

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.

My prayer for the new president today: may have have the wisdom, will, and most of all, courage, to make real the promises of democracy in our time.