All Agree, Free At Last

The Meeting

© 2002-2011 Brian Stewart, Minneapolis, MN

Brian writes: "The Meeting - Minneapolis is blessed with a strong and active sobriety community. It has many good AA Meeting Houses to choose from with meetings most anytime someone needs one. The meeting house I painted here is in South Minneapolis and features the usual cast of characters sharing their experience, strength and hope. The painting portrays the giving of a medallion for another year of sobriety, a very special event in the life of a recovering person."

All Agree, Free At Last
(Oregon City, Oregon)

The round faced short haired
guy at the head table celebrates
ten years sober on this day.

I didn't shake or spill my tea.

The fresh faced short haired
guy across from me is crying
openly because he is going

to jail in less than three hours.

The guy in the corner learned
he can say God and fuck right here
in the same sentence.

He chose to speak of that today.

I will let the wild women
tell their secrets on themselves.
if they want.  They were here too,

and so were other healed and broken hearts.

‎September ‎16, ‎2011 5:17 PM

"I Have a Dream" is a 17-minute public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered on August 28, 1963, in which he called for racial equality and an end to discrimination. The speech, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. Delivered to over 200,000 civil rights supporters, the speech was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century by a 1999 poll of scholars of public address.

This speech concluded, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" which almost certainly referenced the Negro Spiritual:

Free at last, free at last

I thank God I'm free at last

Free at last, free at last

I thank God I'm free at last