Comments on: Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King http://sandhyajha.com/2010/01/let-us-turn-our-thoughts-today-to-martin-luther-king/ Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:01:09 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Lucas Milliken http://sandhyajha.com/2010/01/let-us-turn-our-thoughts-today-to-martin-luther-king/comment-page-1/#comment-30 Lucas Milliken Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:01:09 +0000 http://sandhyajha.com/?p=104#comment-30 I heard a story last night about a conversation that happened during one of the Civil Rights Movement Marches between a younger activist and an older activist. The younger activist, anxious, eagerly asked the older, "When we get there, do you think we'll win?" To which the older activist replied, "Son, we won when we started this walk." I too choke up at the acknowledgement that the song is still in the future tense, but I like that it is unwavering in its certainty regarding the outcome of the struggle. That it has remained so powerfully meaningful to so many generations precisely because the people singing it know it is so deeply and profoundly TRUE. And to be engaged in the struggle in any way assures us of victory. We shall overcome. In truth, we already have. Now, it's just a matter of revealing that truth to those who do not yet know it. I heard a story last night about a conversation that happened during one of the Civil Rights Movement Marches between a younger activist and an older activist.
The younger activist, anxious, eagerly asked the older, “When we get there, do you think we’ll win?”
To which the older activist replied, “Son, we won when we started this walk.”

I too choke up at the acknowledgement that the song is still in the future tense, but I like that it is unwavering in its certainty regarding the outcome of the struggle. That it has remained so powerfully meaningful to so many generations precisely because the people singing it know it is so deeply and profoundly TRUE. And to be engaged in the struggle in any way assures us of victory. We shall overcome. In truth, we already have. Now, it’s just a matter of revealing that truth to those who do not yet know it.

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