My friend Pamela Brown, the writer behind the words at Emission Control, wrote this on her Facebook wall yesterday on the occasion of Martin Luther King’s birthday.

I liked it and, with her kind permission, I’m reprinting it here:

Today is also my father’s birthday…he is 87… I asked him what he thought, having lived almost twice as long as MLK… He said, “I never thought we would make it this far…we were really the bottom of the bottom…they wanted to wipe us out, but they couldn’t…”

I feel that my father is also an #americanrevolutionary – he fought his whole life for the education of so-called under privileged children with so-called learning disabilities…underlying his tireless efforts was the belief that no matter where any child started, they could rise as a part of African-American progress. For him, his work was political action.

He never made a lot of money like we would think of today, but he always viewed himself as wealthy… Each day he left on his mission before 7am, and *after* work didn’t exist… When he was forced into retirement, he returned as a volunteer… #americanrevolutionary

The winners of the Creative Professionals Giveaway have all been contacted and their prizes are now on the way. Congratulations to all of the people below – and many thanks to all of you for making it another a great success!

The Winners

I’m in the process of relaunching Veritrope as a place where technologists and creative professionals from all over the world can meet, learn from one another, and share their tools and inspiration. Last month, I reached out to the hardcore Mac people to find out what they like (and need), and now it’s time to hear from all you Creative Professionals!

I need your help to do that well. So, for this week only, I’ve put together a Giveaway to thank people who complete a 7 question survey. Everyone is welcome to enter, but I really want to hear from designers, writers, non-profit workers, and artists.

Prizes!

Some fantastic prizes are in the mix for all you Veritrope supporters, including:

• Nuance’s Dragon Dictate 3 for OS X
• Fujitsu’s ScanSnap S1100 Portable Document Scanner
• An Alfred Powerpack
• TextExpander by Smile Software
• PDFpen Pro by Smile Software
• DocumentSnap.com Guides for Scanning
• “60 Mountain Lion Tips” by David Sparks and Brett Terpstra

CREATIVE PROFESSIONALS GIVEAWAY ENTRY FORM

The widget below is the entry form.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You get 5 chances to win for completing a very short survey.
(Seriously — It’s only 7 questions).

Extra Chances to Win

If you like, you can also get extra entries for following Veritrope on Twitter, App.Net, or signing up for the mailing list.

I’m really trying to reach out to as many smart, creative people as I can in order to find out what they want and need. If you’re lucky enough to know some people matching that description, you’ll get up to 10 bonus chances to win for each one who completes a survey (See the “Share This” button at the bottom of the entry form to get your special link to send them).

Thanks for your help — and good luck to everyone!