Today, April 4, marks the 40 year anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and it is a day where we should all stop and think about what this man did and what he hoped to accomplish for all of our futures.

Dr. King was a scholar, a minister, and a revolutionary. He believed it wrong to treat people different because of race and fought to end segregation in this country. Moreover, he was a champion of the poor, realizing that poverty is an evil that must be eliminated from all societies.

When he was 35 he became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He preached non-violence. He told us of his dreams.

At 39 he was killed, but he left us his legacy and it is up to us to make it come true.

We owe it to ourselves and our children to end poverty, discrimination, hatred, fear, hopelessness.

Dr. King spoke these words in 1963 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial:

“Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring—when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

We can, unfortunately, add too many others to the list in need of freedom. It is long past time we started to shorten that list. There are many ways to do this, we just have to be willing to try.

And try we must, because everyone should have the ability to live the dream of being free.