Today we celebrate and commemorate the life of a man of peace, a man of love, a man of nonviolence who must be considered one of the founding fathers of the new America. Because of his dedication to the cause of justice and the imperative of human dignity, he wrestled with the soul of a nation and challenged it to reach its highest destiny. He injected new meaning into the very veins of American society and gave his life to make our democracy real.
What he did, what he said, and what he sacrificed inspired an entire generation, and its power still rings throughout this nation and the world. We are a different country today; we are a better people today because Martin Luther King, Jr. believed in the power of love over hate, the power of nonviolence over violence, and the power of peace over war.
If Dr. King could speak today he would tell us to stop this madness and bring our troops home. He would say that war is an obsolete, ineffective tool of our foreign policy. He would say that we must struggle against injustice, we must stand up for what we believe, but if peace is our goal, then peaceful ends can only be secured by peaceful means. He would say as a nation and as a people we can do better; we must do better. We must find a way to live together as brothers and sisters or we will perish as fools.