On August 28, 1963 Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historical “I have a dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. Six months later he addressed a packed crowd of over 10,000 students and faculty in the outdoor Andrews amphitheater at the University of Hawaii. He wore the lei presented to him throughout the speech even in the hot noon sun. A little more than a year later, he and a group of his colleagues proudly wore the leis his friend the Rev. Abraham Alaska of Kawaiahao Church sent to him – this time it was during the march from Selma to Montgomery… Why the leis? Apparently he believed in the symbol of Hawaii’s “Aloha” just as the students who listened to him that day on the packed lawn in 1964 believed in his using “moral means to achieve moral ends.” Note: I was one of those students in the amphitheater who took his words to heart.
Martin Luther King in Hawaii
