I would argue that the potency of King's metaphor stems (at least in part) from its association with biblical imagery. First and foremost, his use of the phrase "mountain of despair" to depict the lengthy, seemingly hopeless fight of African Americans for freedom and dignity has a biblical ring to it. As many scholars have pointed out, the book of Joshua recounts the conquest of Canaan as an effort led by God that brought hope even to a group of people who had previously lived in slavery themselves. But beyond this, I also believe that the power of this image comes from its ability to speak to everyone fighting against oppression. No matter how great or how small their struggle may be, every person is capable of giving rise to a stone of hope. In addition to being used to describe the civil rights movement, this phrase has been popularly applied to other important events in American history, such as the Vietnam War protests or the fight for gay marriage equality. In fact, Google Trends data shows that searches for "a stone of hope" increased significantly around the time of Martin Luther King Jr.'s death in 1968. It seems clear that Dr. King saw his own work as a necessary step toward bringing about world peace, but he never lost sight of the fact that the battle for racial justice was still very much ongoing at the time of his death.