January 20, 2025 marks Martin Luther King's 96th birthday.  As we reflect back on his life,  his contributions to the moral fabric of our country and its trajectory to 'a more perfect union', we may recall the concluding words of inspiration delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial: 'I have  dream that my four little 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.'  But will we recall his introductory words of admonishment:  'One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. And so we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.  In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check ... America has given the Negro a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.'

Every day is an appropriate day to rethink the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., but on January 20 of this year, it is particularly relevant.  

Read King's speech, delivered August 28, 1963, on the Washington Mall (below).

Hear his equanimity, grace, and composure in a recently recovered taping of his opening address to the 15-week lecture series, American Race Crisis, delivered on February 6, 1964, at the New School for Social Research in New York (also below). His answers to the audience's questions (included) are particularly interesting. The speech transcript is available as well.