08/24/2013: Bishop M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE and Bishop Gayle E. Harris of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts offer the following statement on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington:
As events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom get underway this weekend, we want to say how grateful we are for that moment in history and its calling forth of people from all over our nation in nonviolent witness for equality.
This time of remembering also marks just how far we are from God's vision--for the dream that Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of that day was a vision--of racial equality in this country. "Let justice roll down like waters," Dr. King said in that famous speech. The message of that day urges us to keep to the freedom trail that led up to that August day in 1963 and that leads us forward now, so that we keep moving as a mighty stream toward freedom and justice for all.