When Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed 40 years ago today, my mom put her hand on her pregnant belly and wondered what type of world she was bringing her child into. It was (and is) a world much better for having had Dr. King in it.

Exactly one year before he was shot, Dr. King gave a talk called Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. In it, he quoted Langston Hughes' poem, "Let America Be America Again":

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

America will only be the America Hughes and King dreamed about if we continue to break the silence about unjust war, if we continue to speak truth to power against the risk of our own silencing. That bullet didn't silence Dr. King. May his voice continue to live on through all of our actions.