Hold Fast to Dreams: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

(photo Public Playground on the Charles River, near Soldiers Field Road 06/1973, http://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/3952795663/)

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

The Martin Luther King Jr. Center Archive opens Monday, January 16, 2012. It includes digital access to Dr. King's sermons, speeches, and letters, as well as images related to the Civil Rights Movement. On Monday, the United States commemorates the life and work of the civil rights leader. His well-known "I Have a Dream" speech still inspires us. (Read or hear it here.)

(photo http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-1054179588) Martin Luther King, Jr., delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech, 1963.

Langston Hughes, Harlem Renaissance poet, says to "Hold fast to dreams," for without dreams our lives are dull and purposeless.(photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/blacksnob/2938947823/sizes/m/in/photostream/)
His poem "Harlem [Dream Deferred"] implies dire consequences when a dream fails to come to fruition.



Kathy Mattea offers another look at dreams and dreamers who try to make the world a better place. In "Beautiful Fool," she sings, "Dreams weren't meant to come true, That's why they call 'em dreams."


What do you think? Are dreams--and striving for them--worth it? What are your dreams? What are you doing to make them come true?