Continuing Honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. - Chapters to Realize the Dream Remain

Today, we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Black civil rights leader of the 1960s, whose nonviolent campaign to better conditions for all people, has come to epitomize the mode of peaceful protests.

Yet, as we honor a man's whose humility and character embodied and defined peace toward social change, we must wonder of the future face social protests will take as needed in order to protect and to advance those civil and human rights Dr. King and others paid for in blood, and in life.

Violent responses and actions to social protests from Ferguson, Missouri to Charlottesville, Virginia, question whether or not nonviolence would withstand the resurgence of armed far right agitations stoked by executive rhetoric and rantings.

Attacks on civil and human rights remain too prevalent decades after Dr. King. Voting rights remain under attack. Hostile white supremacy groups feel re-energized since the ascension of Donald Trump to the Oval Office. Equality remains theory. Women's rights and the environment remain threatened. 

There will be future protests because many chapters to the full realization of Dr. King's dream remain unfulfilled. So as we honor Martin Luther King, Jr. on this day, January 15, 2018, we should continue to promote nonviolence and wish for peace while writing the final chapters toward equality, justice and liberty for all.