This day means more this year than it has in previous years. It is hard to imagine that less than 50 years ago, people were arguing over whether African-Americans should be allowed to attend the same schools as Caucasians. It is hard to imagine that just a few decades ago, a restaurant was within its rights to deny service to people on the basis of race.

Today the President of the United States of America is a black man. If you had told Martin Luther King that we would have a black president in the next 50 years, he probably would have found it difficult to believe. It just goes to show how committed action changes the face of history.

I find this hopeful in an age when so much is wrong.

This is not to say that Dr. King's dream has been realized; the world is still full of racially based prejudice and discrimination. I hope that in another 50 years, one's race is as irrelevant as their hair or eye color. In fact, I hope that in 50 years racial distinctions are considered quaint and useful only in medicine as DNA markers of risk for whatever diseases. I hope that in 50 more years Dr. King's dream will be realized and we will be "judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character," and I strongly believe that we're almost there and that we'll get there. So far we've at least succeeded in making racism socially unacceptable.

Even though this one battle -- against racism -- seems to be going well, it is not the only or last social justice issue that needs to be faced. A racial bias-free world will do few any good if we're all discriminated against equally or oppressed by a multi-racial consortium.

The issues of today are those of economic justice. Workers all over the world are being exploited and therefore dehumanized by a ravenous beast that pursues profit at any cost. Anyone can lose their job at any time for any reason. This would be well and good if expectation of a new job were reasonable, but the jobs are gone. The capital is off elsewhere in search of cheaper labor. The profit gained from this exercise finds itself flowing into ever fewer hands, collecting in an every more filthily stagnant ocean of value-free wealth.

Where is our Rosa Parks? What tired soul will say, "Enough is enough," and refuse to sit in the back of the bus? Once that person emerges, a new Martin Luther King won't be far behind.

That is my greatest hope on this day, that we will do for future generations what past generations did for us: Struggle toward a more just, more prosperous, and more fulfilling world.