I begin each year with a women’s spiritual retreat at Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Haley Farm in Tennessee. This year Reverend Janet Wolf, Director of CDF Haley Farm and Nonviolent Organizing, shared a meditation based on Langston Hughes’ brilliant 1943 poem “Freedom’s Plow” that she had been using in her ministry on Tennessee’s death row consisting of both incarcerated “insiders” and “outsiders.” All of us were caught up in the poem’s descriptions of centuries of American struggle against oppression and for America’s promised dream of freedom and justice for all.

In December 1967 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached what would be his last Christmas sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. At the end Dr. King spoke about the day he told the nation at the March on Washington that he had a dream for America’s future, but said in the uncertain years that had followed that dream sometimes felt like it was turning into a nightmare. But Dr. King said he was never willing to give up:

This is usually a season of familiar scenes in schools across the country, with holiday programs featuring messages of peace and goodwill to all. But this year many teachers and students have been seeing another story.

Lord I can’t preach like Martin Luther King, Jr. or turn a poetic phrase like Maya Angelou but I care and am willing to serve and stand with others to move our children forward and save our children in this time of Thanksgiving.

“You know, it was pretty staggering. It put an end to essentially something that the Civil War was unable to end.” -Legal Defense Fund Attorney Jack Greenberg, describing his reaction after the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education I was heartbroken by the recent death of Jack Greenberg, one of the last great legal links to Brown v. Board of Education and my first boss out of law school . What a privilege to work in a legal powerhouse with Jack and Constance Baker Motley, Derrick Bell, James Nabrit, III and many other gifted and committed civil rights attorneys. As the son of...

Hope for the Future is a series of twelve meditations that include Scripture passages, moving true stories, and examples from other movements and faithful leaders to inspire all those working to create a better world for our children. It’s a book that could be used as a devotional or in group discussions by everyone from parents to pastors. Rev. Daley-Harris has long been speaking out on the call to care for children in every major faith tradition and calling on people to turn faith into action. As the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF)’s Religious Affairs Advisor and Director of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Child Advocacy Ministry Institute for two decades, she coordinates the National Observance of Children’s Sabbaths® Celebrations. Every year congregations of many faiths observe the Children’s Sabbath by drawing on Rev. Daley-Harris’s resources and the texts and teachings of their religious traditions to hear and respond to the holy and eternal call for love and justice that urges special care and protection for children, especially those who are poor.

If Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, I am certain he would be urgently saying it is a moral imperative for each one of us to register and vote in our local, state, and national elections this year — and every year. Shortly after Congressman John Lewis spoke movingly at the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, he was asked on a radio show if he thought this was the time to organize another march on Washington. Without missing a beat, he replied: “I think the best march that we can have right now in America is on Election Day, November the eighth, for all of us all over America – Black and White, Latino, Native American, young people – to march to the polls. The vote is precious. It’s almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democratic society.”

The September 24 opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture is the realization of a dream that’s been a very long time coming, beginning a century ago when Black leaders first proposed a memorial to Black Civil War veterans. Dr. Rex M. Ellis, the museum’s Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs, speaking to young teachers during the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF)’s 2016 Freedom Schools® training, shared his hopes that the museum will help light the way for the next generation of Americans and that the museum’s vision will “change the master narrative of our nation:”

As a new school year begins, how do we teach Black and other non-White children and youths and all those who are poor or have special needs to ensure their successful readiness for the future? How do educators and all those with primary responsibilities for preparing children for the future understand that every child is sacred and deserves fair treatment? How do we create a pedagogy that respects the unique gifts of our diverse child population and nation of many colors and faiths and become a beacon for our multiracial multicultural world?