We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Today, as we honor the birth of a prophet of justice, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., let us gather at the crossroads of history, where echoes of chains still rattle in the wind and the sweat of the stolen still stains the soil. His dream, carved into the conscience of nations, remains an unfinished symphony a call to arms in the struggle for liberation, dignity, and justice.
The Black journey has long been a tunnel dark, unyielding, and stretching beyond the reach of weary eyes. It began at the harbors of captivity, where the sa lty tears of Africa kissed the wooden hulls of ships that bore souls into bondage. The slave dungeons of Elmina and Gorée whispered final goodbyes, sealing fates with the cold, iron kiss of manacles. Those who passed through the Door of No Return did not merely leave home; they were wrenched from the womb of the motherland, cast into the belly of an empire that would feast upon their labor, devour their names, and spit them out as chattel.
Yet, the river does not forget its source, and neither does a people. For even in the bowels of oppression, when bodies were broken on the anvil of plantation capitalism, when whips conducted symphonies of suffering, and auction blocks became altars of desecration, the spirit of Africa remained unyielding. The griots of the diaspora sang in cotton fields, their voices laced with the rhythms of forgotten empires. Their feet, though chained, still danced in defiance; their tongues, though gagged, still carved prayers into the night.
The colonialist came not with swords alone but with ledgers and laws, baptizing theft as progress, occupation as civilization. The motherland was dissected by European knives, its people bartered between monarchs and merchants. From the Congo to Calabar, from Johannesburg to Jinja, Black bodies became currency in the economy of subjugation. Capitalism stood on their backs, imperialism feasted on their toil, and even after the chains were loosed, the system remained, reinvented in segregation, redlining, economic servitude, and mass incarceration.
Dr. King stood at the precipice of that tunnel, his voice a torch against the lingering night. He called forth a generation, urging them not to be satisfied with justice deferred, nor to be lulled into the slumber of complacency. His words marched through Selma, bled through Memphis, and roared through Washington like the Nile in flood. I have a dream, he declared, not as a mere wish but as a prophecy a call for the unfinished liberation of the Black soul.
Yet today, that dream stands at another crossroads. The world has found new chains, forged in policies that strangle opportunity, in prisons that swallow futures, in systemic weights that press knees upon necks. The tunnel, though illuminated by progress, is still not fully behind us. The Black race still walks the thin bridge between legacy and liberation, between historical betrayal and the promise of tomorrow.
But we must remember, as the elders say, No matter how long the night, the dawn must break. The river will always return to the sea. The legacy of struggle, from the Maroons of Jamaica to the Mau Mau of Kenya, from the sit-ins of Greensboro to the protests of Ferguson, is one of unrelenting resilience. The children of Africa, scattered but not broken, must rise with the spirit of Sankofa looking back, not in sorrow, but in the wisdom to reclaim what was lost.
And so, on this day, we honor not only Dr. King but every ancestor who dared to dream, to fight, to build. We wish his family, the children of the diaspora, and all who stand for justice a blessed Martin Luther King Jr. Day. May his words continue to be the hammer that breaks the walls of injustice, and may we, the living, be the architects of a world where no people are cast into tunnels of no return, but instead walk freely under the sun of true equality.
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
By: Jide Adesina
Tribute to Dr Martin Luther King Jnr
January, 2025
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HAPPY MARTIN LUTHER KING JNR ‘S DAY
