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YOUNGSTOWN — Natalia McRae strongly feels if you read a speech Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered during a victorious moment nearly 56 years ago, it quickly will become apparent that his words are just as relevant today.
“Dr. King said this in 1965 at the end of the Selma-to-Montgomery march. It is still appropriate today,” McRae, an East High School senior and member of Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past, said.
McRae was referring to King’s “How Long, Not Long” speech that he delivered to about 25,000 people who gathered March 25, 1965, in Montgomery, Ala., at the conclusion of the famous five-day, 54-mile walk for voting rights. King’s words were intended mainly to reassure the masses that the days of brutality in the South against blacks by white people were waning.