"How Long? Not Long."

In the days following Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2018, members of the K-12 Hackley community joined together to perform an excerpted presentation of Dr. King’s “Selma” speech. Less well known than his “I Have a Dream” speech, its message is equally profound and forward-looking. Here is our collective celebration of that vision. Read on...

On March 25, 1965, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the Freedom March from Selma, Alabama to the state capitol in Montgomery, where he spoke to the assembled crowd. The March, the subject of the popular film “Selma,” followed the successful passing of the Voting Rights Act, and was a high water mark of the Civil Rights movement, when Dr. King and so many others had reason to believe and hope we would see real change going forward. King’s unwavering optimism is all the more notable because his speech came between two acts of racial violence. The first attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery was met with officially sanctioned attacks on marchers which left many beaten and bloodied; and, in the wake of the successful second march and this speech, members of the KKK shot an SCLC volunteer as she drove marchers home from the rally in Montgomery. King, famous for his belief that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” saw the possibility for social redemption even in the darkest days of racism.

Listen to the full recording of Dr. King's speech.

Read Michael Wirtz's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day letter.
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