Reflection on the Election

I'll bet you can guess who delivered this speech without my telling you:

Excerpted:
I know it's really hard when we think of the tragic midnight of injustice and oppression that we've had to live under so many years, but let us not become bitter. Let us never indulge in hate campaigns, for we can't solve the problem like that. Somebody must have sense in this world. And to hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of hate in the universe. We must not use violence. Maybe sometimes we will have to be the victims of violence but never let us be the perpetrators of violence. For if we succumb to the temptation of using violence in our struggle, unborn generations would be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness and our chief legacy to the future would be an endless rain of meaningless chaos. We must not use violence. Oh, sometimes as we struggle it will be necessary to boycott. But let us remember as we boycott that a boycott is never an end. A boycott is merely means to awaken within the oppressor the sense of shame and to let him know that we don't like how we are being treated; but the end my friends is reconciliation, the end is redemption.

Oh, no matter how much we are mistreated there is still a voice crying through the vistas of time saying, "Love your enemy." "Bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you. And then, and only then, can you matriculate into the university of eternal life. We must get a hold of this simple principle of love and let it be our guiding principle throughout our struggle.

This means that through this period we will need leaders on every hand and at every scene who will stress this...Oh, this is a period for leaders. Leaders not in love with publicity, but in love with humanity. Leaders not in love with money, but in love with justice. Leaders who can subject their particular egos to the greatness of the cause.

Oh,
God give us leaders.
A time like this demands great leaders. 

Leaders whom the lust of office cannot kill;

Leaders whom the spoils of life cannot buy;

Leaders who possess opinions and will;

Leaders who will not lie;

Leaders who can stand before a demagogue and damn his 
treacherous flatteries without winking. 

Tall leaders, sun-crowned, who live above the fog 
in public duty and in private thinking.

And this is the need my friends of the hour. This is the need all over the nation. In every community there is a dire need for leaders who will lead the people, who stand today amid the wilderness toward the promise land of freedom and justice. God grant that ministers, and lay leaders, and civic leaders, and businessmen, and professional people all over the nation will rise up and use the talent and the finances that God has given them, and lead the people on toward the Promised Land of freedom with rational, calm, nonviolent means. This is the great challenge of the hour.

And if we will do this my friends we will be able to speed up the coming of this new order, which is destined to come. This new world in which men will be able to live together as brothers. This new world in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of all human personality. This new world in which men will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Yes, this new world in which men will no longer take necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. This new world in which men will learn the old principle of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They will hear once more the voice of Jesus crying out through the generations saying, "Love everybody." This is that world. Then right here in America we will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the Pilgrims pride,

From every mountain side,

Let freedom ring.

As I heard a powerful orator say not long ago that must become literally true. Freedom must ring from every mountain side. Let us go out this evening with that determination. Yes, let it ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let it ring from the prodigious hill tops of New Hampshire. Let it ring from the mighty Alleghanies of Pennsylvania. Let it ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that. From every mountain side let freedom ring. Yes, let us go out and be determined that freedom will ring from every mole hill in Mississippi. Let it ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let it ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let it ring from every mountain and hill of Alabama. From every mountain side let freedom ring. And when that happens we will be able to go out and sing a new song: "Free at last, free at last, great God almighty I'm free at last."