Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us
…Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night
Have found that the calling to speak
Is often a vocation of agony,
But we must speak.
We must speak with all the humility
That is appropriate to our limited vision,
But we must speak.
And we must rejoice as well,
For surely this is the first time in our nation’s history
That a significant number of its religious leaders
Have chosen to move beyond
The prophesying of smooth patriotism
To the high grounds of a firm dissent
Based upon the mandates of conscience
And the reading of history.
Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us.
If it is, let us trace its movements
And pray that our own inner being
May be sensitive to its guidance,
For we are deeply in need of a new way
Beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.