40 Years on: The dream continues

Dr Martin Luther King, the colossus, was a physically small man and yet as we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of his most famous of speech -'I have a dream' he is regarded as one of the, if not the most famous and important Black man that ever lived. Only Nelson Mandela is a credible challenge to that coveted title. Interestingly both King and Mandela would feature in the top five of most people's world list of great modern leaders.

Dr King's legacy, and in particular his, 'I have a dream' speech, lives on because of its relevance today, and its broad appeal that touches all humanity. His Methodist teaching coupled with his great admiration for Gandhi's non-violent protest is the foundation for a speech that was, in many respects, to change America. It is a speech like no other that implores the listener, the reader, to find something within themselves, something that he knows is there, perhaps hidden away in a dark recess, that needs to come to the fore to save ourselves from ourselves.

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." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

Forty years on these words literally cry out to Israelis and Palestinians caught up in a cycle of devastating hatred and violence. It speaks to Iraqis as much as it does to an American Government blinded by arrogance, to impart justice.

It also speaks to many other millions such as myself, who are filled with pride that it is a Black man, with his purposeful and perhaps calculated naivety, who is able to ask a hate filled world for love.

But don't be fooled by Dr King's calculated naivety. Dr King was anything but naive and a million miles from a dreamer. From his early days campaigning for Rosa Parks against the draconian and racist bus laws that forced Black people to sit at the back of the bus, Dr King had much more than a dream. He had a plan.

As an activist, this is the legacy I run with. King, like A P Randolph - the Black bus boys union leader, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, and many others, all acutely understood the politics of power. Democracy is a numbers game. If you have the numbers and you can effectively mobilise them, then power is yours. Putting words into deeds, Dr King, called for a Black boycott of the Birmingham, Alabama buses. The owners quickly realised that the pennies from thousands of Black customers meant the difference between survival and bankruptcy. The force of numbers that translated to economical survival, not morality, forced change.

Dr King's next big fight with the Civil Rights movement was for the vote in states such as Mississippi. Dr King knew that having and using the vote was not some meaningless exercise in civic engagement, but a necessary tool to ensure Black people had some say, some control over their lives.

My only sadness in discussing Dr King and his seminal speech is that despite his iconic status, despite the enormous appeal of his speech, the essence of what he meant, particularly the empowering of Black people to democratically and positively take control over their lives is, at best not being fully utilised, and at worst ignored.

Forty years on and the rabid police dogs with their blood lust handlers no longer pursue Black people fighting for justice. But the very nature of justice is ever changing and at times extremely elusive. The focus and attention, therefore, that not only stirred Dr King to write, 'I have a dream', but also drove him passionately on to deliver it is needed now, almost as much, as it was then.