Inscribed on Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s tombstone is a verse from the Book of Genesis: “They said to one another, ‘Behold, here cometh the dreamer... let us slay him... and we shall see what might become of his dreams’.”

The 1964 Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s epitaph very consciously echoes the words of his most celebrated speech while defiantly rejecting the idea that dreams die along with dreamers.

The “I Have A Dream” address delivered before almost one million people on the Mall in Washington DC in 1963 encapsulated Dr King’s philosophy, his overriding ambition to secure the most moral of ends through entirely moral means.

And what was this end he set his sights on, the ideal his family and supporters insisted would not be buried with him? Nothing less than realising the age-old dream of the brotherhood of man

It was both as ambitious and as straightforward as that. As a supporter remarked in the immediate aftermath of his 1968 assassination: “If we are to lend credence to our mourning (we) must act on the altogether proper assumption that Martin Luther King asked for nothing but that which was his due... He asked for no special concessions, no favoured leg up the ladder. He asked only for equality.”

The campaign of non-violent resistance Dr King led against embedded racial segregation, oppression and injustice in the United States in the 1950s and ‘60s was predicated on a dream as old as our very oldest codes of ethics, one which remains as desirable and as tantalisingly elusive as ever.

Dr King dreamed of a world which utterly rejected intolerance for inclusivity, a world in which individuals and groups and entire nations would one day be judged on the basis of character, deeds and actions rather than by such incidentals as skin colour, gender, religious or political creed or even sexual orientation.

Those who argued during his lifetime and after his death that Dr King’s quest placed him squarely in the company of history’s wishful thinkers were wrong. For the barricades of intolerance, ignorance and prejudice are continuing to be dismantled at an increasingly rapid rate; progress demonstrates on a daily basis that it is the natural enemy of all stagnant, regressive ideas and ideologies.

True, throughout history such headway has often been marked by small victories followed by large defeats. Dr King himself became a victim of the hate-driven violence he spent his adult life combating.

But since the days of antiquity the dream has never died with the dreamer despite the severity of some of the setbacks.

We continue to advance, if only in a fits-and-starts manner, towards a world based on merit and a full appreciation of moral worth. Hate might fight the most blood-chilling rearguard actions imaginable. But hate never prevails in the long-term; its victories are never permanent.

Just at the moment this might seem a particularly difficult notion to accept. For in recent weeks the world has watched in revulsion as Pakistani school children, Kurdish refugees, French satirists and Nigerian villagers became the latest victims in the ongoing war the forces of unreconstructed and unrepentant reaction are waging against the inexorable march of progress.

As the world grows ever more interconnected and informed, the impact of such faraway horrors becomes ever more immediate and pronounced.

Yesterday the United States and much of the rest of the world — including Bermuda — paused to reflect on Dr King’s life and legacy on what would have been his 86th birthday. And it’s likely these demoralising and disheartening atrocities, these terrible routs inflicted on humanity’s forward march, were not far from most minds.

Which is precisely why would all do well to heed — and act on — the slain Civil Rights leader’s call to “develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighbourly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing, unconditional love for all men (which) has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of mankind.

“And when I speak of love I’m not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life.”

And that is what it is really all about. The destiny of all men is surely to attempt to reach out for an ultimate perfection which is to be had, to help fulfil the dream Dr King so memorably articulated on the Mall a half-century ago.

For when we clasp hands with our neighbour, we build the first span to bridge the divide between conservative and liberal, black and white, Jew and Muslim, gay and straight, young and old, rich and poor, East and West, North and South. And then we really shall see what might become of the dreamer’s dreams.