MLK's dream alive in Valley

The seminal moment in the lives of many African-Americans who came of age in the 1960s often is related to the civil-rights movement: the Supreme Court desegregation of public schools, the freedom marches in the South, the "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr. Tony Castro in the Daily News.

But Morris Pichon, himself a son of the South, says the most pivotal moment in his life occurred this year.

"The Iowa caucuses," said Pichon, a 66-year-old retired Lockheed Martin Corp. manufacturing analyst who lives in Pacoima with his wife, Barbara. "When I saw that Caucasians in Iowa were going to the polls and voting overwhelmingly for Barack Obama, a black man, I knew that for the first time, after all these years, Americans had woken up.