A time comes when silence is betrayal.

Remember that today is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. A reading is in order, as it is every year. Your assignment is to read aloud Letter from Birmingham Jail. It will take you about half an hour to read.

“Never before have I written so long a letter. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?”

For extra credit — and this is like eating ice cream for extra credit, so there’s no reason not to do this —

      listen to
I Have a Dream.”

“There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, ‘When will you be satisfied?’ We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »