A special guest blog:

At times the quest for a free, independent and prosperous California nation may seem a quixotic one. The tides we swim against are entrenched and powerful. On this day that marks the memory of one of the greatest leaders in American history, I felt it only fitting to let Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. drop in as our guest blogger, and inspire us with excerpts from his 1967 speech, “Where Do We Go From Here.” (Note: parenthetical additions are mine)

“We have a task, and let us go out with a divine dissatisfaction.

“Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort and the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice.

“Let us be dissatisfied until those that live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security.

“Let us be dissatisfied until slums are cast into the junk heaps of history, and every family is living in a decent sanitary home.

“Let us be dissatisfied until the dark yesterdays of segregated schools will be transformed into bright tomorrows of quality, integrated education.

“Let us be dissatisfied until integration is not seen as a problem but as an opportunity to participate in the beauty of diversity.

“Let us be dissatisfied until men and women…will be judged on the basis of the content of their character, and not on the basis of the color of their skin (or gender, or creed, or religion, or sexual orientation).

“Let us be dissatisfied until from every city hall, justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

“Let us be dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout “White Power!” When nobody will shout “Black Power!” But everybody will talk about…human power.

“The road ahead will not always be smooth. There will still be rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future.”