“His courage and faith led a passionate movement that has transformed the United States forever,” said Virginia Leak of the Temple NAACP, which sponsored the 3rd Annual Salute to King.
“The legacy of Dr. King lives in each of us,” Mrs. Leak told participants in the crowded church. “We are responsible to promote, teach and live the American dream.”
That dream was that the people of this nation “will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ … When we allow freedom to ring … we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”
They may not have sung that exact spiritual Monday, but the energy was just the same, as the crowd — young and old, black and white — listened and responded to the reverend’s sermons.
