"We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now," Martin Luther King Jr. said in his famed "I Have a Dream" at the time. "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. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."
Fifty years ago this year, MLK also wrote his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," and 150 years ago, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
For award-winning author and Tufts University Professor of History Peniel Joseph, these defining moments provided an opportunity to share an engaging history lesson with those gathered in Wittenberg's Weaver Chapel, Jan. 21, during the Wittenberg Series-sponsored MLK Commemorative Convocation.
Written By: Karen Gerboth
Video Recorded By: Charidy Murphy
Photos By: Erin Pence
