Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We get the day off school. Banks close. There’s no mail. But does it mean anything to you? Thirty-five years ago this man, along with millions of others, worked to break down the shackles of racism in our society. In some ways, they succeeded. They forced the government to deliver their promised rights.

But there hasn’t been total success. Gaining your legal rights is one thing, but gaining your rights as a person is another. You can force someone to treat you fairly, but you can’t force someone to like you, to see you as a person. For the most part, legal racism has been banished from America. But racism still holds a strong grip in the minds of Americans.

This is where the battle must now be fought. And that battle is far from over. That battle is hardly begun.

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(here’s a few memorable lines from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. If these two lines are the only lines you recognize, I suggest you read the entire speech.)

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…

…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!”