Today, our nation honors the birthday of our most famous Civil Rights leader, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was not only a brilliant leader - both a visionary man and an outstanding writer and speaker - but also an extremely brave man. He faced off against a system of injustice that was widespread throughout the country and especially throughout the south, a system that was founded upon the idea that one group of people is better than another. Without any weapons or ammunition and in the face of the most brutal and violent tactics imaginable that were used against him and his supporters, King did the one thing that no army could do. His words and his example changed people's hearts and minds. He helped change the country from a place in which segregation was not only legal but legally mandated into a place in which almost nobody wants to be identified as a racist. He walked bravely into the presence of people who had been enemies. And he made quite a few of them want to be brothers.

Thank God for the life and dream of Dr. King.