It was heartening to watch a black president mark the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech.

Certainly, the reality of having a President Barack Obama would not have been possible at this juncture in our history were it not for the vision, determination and courage of King as he exhorted the nation to live up to its promise in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.

But King’s vision of the American dream went way beyond race. His mission was to ensure that black Americans and all others in this country would be able to partake of “the riches of freedom and the security of justice.” As he himself spoke that day 50 years ago, he dreamed of a nation where people would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

The election — twice — of Barack Obama to the presidency shows that such a dream has in large measure come to pass. And yet, as the president asserted in his speech to the nation Wednesday, there is still work to be done.

The president talked about various types of economic and social justice which he espouses for the nation’s future. He talked about “entrenched interests” and “the old politics of division” and “growing economic insecurity,” and those themes reverbrate strongly among certain progressive groups in the country, but President Obama did not stop there.

He wisely noted that in the push for social change, sometimes well-intentioned people have lost their way. He talked about “self-defeating riots,” about “excuse-making for criminal behavior,” about the “language of recrimination” and about how the fight for justice had been “too often framed as a mere desire for government support.”

The president’s recognition of those pitfalls on the road to justice, combined with the Rev. King’s truly visionary prescription for a better America, give hope that somehow Americans can rise above their tainted racial history, and rediscover the principles on which our nation was founded.

Although King’s speech is best noted, and rightly so, for the soaring rhetoric and language of “I Have a Dream,” it might best direct our future from a less well-known passage that we might all heed as we strive to become better people:

“In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.”

If the American racial divide is ever finally to be bridged and then forgotten, this entreaty must be the watchword for both blacks and whites. A better America depends on it.

Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.