Hoyer: Much of MLK’s Dream Remains Unfulfilled

Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md., 5th) will deliver remarks at three events Monday, Jan. 16, honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

He will speak at the 13th annual St. Mary’s County Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. prayer breakfast to be held at St. Mary’s College of Maryland’s J. Frank Raley Great Room in the Campus Center in St. Mary’s City.

Rep. Hoyer also will deliver brief remarks at the 22th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. prayer breakfast hosted by the Charles County NAACP at North Point High School at 2500 Davis Road in Waldorf.

The congressman also will attend the Collective Empowerment Group’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. worship service at First Baptist Church of Highland Park at 6801 Sheriff Road in Landover.

“This year, as we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we reflect on his legacy and his commitment to nonviolence in the ceaseless pursuit of justice and opportunity for all. In the forty-nine years since Dr. King was taken from us, our nation has seen his vision carried forward from the dismantling of segregation and Jim Crow to the landslide election of our nation’s first African-American president,” the congressman said. “However, amid all that has been achieved, so much of Dr. King’s dream remains unfulfilled, with stubborn inequalities persisting in education, employment, and opportunity – and with young people of color in many places living in fear of walking down the streets of their neighborhoods or interacting with law enforcement.

“Events of the past year have led many to question whether the march of progress has stalled – or even been turned back. But like the bloodied marchers at Selma, no force can turn back the tide of progress and history in the cause of justice and civil rights. That’s why I will continue to work with my friend Rep. John Lewis and the Congressional Black Caucus to defend voting rights, expand opportunity for all, and fight for justice in every corner of this country. Because the vision for which Dr. King gave his life continues to guide us forward and inspire all of us to build an America that reflects the principles of its founding: a free nation of laws, equally applied, where each individual has an equal voice and a fair shot at success.

“As President Obama said in his farewell address on Tuesday night, ‘America is no fragile thing.  But the gains of our long journey to freedom are not assured.’ It is, therefore, up to us to make them so.  May Dr. King’s memory serve as a blessing and inspiration to us all to live our lives as instruments of the progress and change we need in our time, so that we can leave our children and grandchildren a more perfect union on which to build in their own.”

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