"I have a dream"

“I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day 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." 

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.  Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!  Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!  Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!  But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!  Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!  Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi.  From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

 

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, 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!" 

Lou Billionis, dean UC College of Law

UC Magazine December 2009 http://www.magazine.uc.edu/1009/diversity.htm