"There is something in the soul that cries out for freedom"

MLK: "There is something in the soul that cries out for freedom..."

By Kenneth D. McClintock

Those words spoken many decades ago by Martin Luther King as the people of Ghana acquired freedom as they unshackled themselves from colonialism are words that President Obama has used* to describe the change taking place in Egypt.

It is a spirit that must develop in Puerto Rico to unshackle America's citizens in Puerto Rico from the lack of freedoms that prevent them from participating in the election of their national government, be it that of an independent nation, or the United States national government, ruled by a President in whose election residents of Puerto Rico do not participate, governed by a Congress in which they lack voting representation, and whose laws are interpreted by a Judiciary whose members are nominated and confirmed with no say from Puerto Rico.

After the Puerto Rico Democracy Act, passed by a solid bipartisan margin in the House, died in the United States Senate, the burial ground of so many of Puerto Rico's past hopes, our best hope now is what President Obama's upcoming Puerto Rico report may say about status and what action our local government will take to allow 3.7 million American citizens to express themselves about their future.

A process must be put in place for our people's cry for freedom to be channeled through the ballot box and not in the streets, as the lack of democracy in Egypt forced that people to do.