(CNN) This year's Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, the last that will be commemorated during the Obama presidency, offers the opportunity for sober clarity about the present leavened by defiant hope for the future. The King holiday, a hard-won victory by veterans of the civil rights era alongside of black elected officials, became a crucial part of a new national consensus on racial equality. Peniel JosephIn the shadow of continued moments of racial strife, the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday represents America's political and rhetorical acceptance of civil rights as a moral and political good. Lewis is a genuine American hero, a humble and courageous foot soldier and civil rights leader, who suffered severe beatings in 1961 as a Freedom Rider and four years later during the "Bloody Sunday" march in Selma, Alabama. He is the last major speaker from the 1963 March on Washington living in America.

Source: CNN January 15, 2017 21:43 UTC