Photo of the Day: MLK’s‘ Bright Daybreak of Peace and Brotherhood’

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech,” December 10, 1964

Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. was born on this date in 1929 in Atlanta. Even in written form, his words cannot fail to move me. While he was alive, his delivery set an oppressed people to march and break forever the legal manacles of American apartheid, in the process inspiring nonviolent protests against legally enforced bigotry elsewhere around the globe. Go to his memorial in DC, as I did one bright morning this past November (and snapped this photo), and read the quotations on the walls. It’s enough to make you know that even the most “starless midnight of racism and war” can’t last forever.