What's Happening this Week?

In celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Harry Kendall Dowdy, Jr.

“Let freedom ring!”
said a man of faith and love.

I hear it ringing, ever ringing,
and know that freedom silenced today
will ring tomorrow.

Listen and you will hear freedom
ring from writs called Declaration and
Preamble, Articles and Amendments;
ring from mandates for “due process,”
“probable cause,” “equal protection of laws;”
ring as deliverance from punishment on
the medieval rack or at the fiery stake;
ring from church bells that summon
the faithful to worship, not by force of the state
but by the force of faith.

Listen further and you will hear freedom
ring when the voter conducts
the nation’s political orchestra;
ring from media free to expose wrongdoing;
ring when nonviolent citizens assemble
to lay their grievances at
the doorstep of constituted power;
ring in the cry, Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!
announcing the seating of Justice
in nine high-backed chairs
arrayed in a columned temple where
the rights of the meek equal
the rights of the mighty.

Of all its ringing,
freedom rings best when
deeds of love inspire a nation
to extend freedom in greater measure
to a greater number of its citizens,
as happened once upon a man.