KING: Message is marching on

One hundred and fifty years ago, arguably America’s greatest citizen issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the “Negro” from the bondage of slavery and its attendant indignities and horror. After the Appomattox Courthouse came Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the KKK, brutal hangings, “whites only” and a whole new host of indignities and horror, occasionally culminating in deadly race riots.

Fifty years ago, a true American hero told us of a dream upon which people would be judged by their character, not their color. America stood tall with Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Today, what freedom has been achieved is being undercut by those who would deny voter rights under the guise of attacking “fraud,” even though it doesn’t exist.

The blood of Antietam, Chickamauga, The Wilderness, Gettysburg — hundreds of battles, hundreds of thousands of those who gave the “last full measure of devotion” — still cries out for justice, for which Martin King so eloquently pleaded. On the anniversary of this most historic day, please remember that the march isn’t over.

JOHN STROBEL

Athol