M.L. KING'S "I HAVE A DREAM" SPEECH - AUG. 28,

1963 I am happy to join with you today in what will go

down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in

the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great

American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today,

signed the Emancipation Proclaimation. This momentous

decree came as a great beacon of hope to millions of slaves,

who had been seared in the flames of whithering injustice. It

came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their

captivity. But one hundered years later, the colored America

is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the

colored American is still sadly crippled by the manacle of

segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred

years later, the colored American lives on a lonely island of

poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.

One hundred years later, the colored American is still

languishing in the corners of American society and finds

himself an exile in his own land So we have come here today

to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we have come

to our Nation's Capital to cash a check. When the architects

of our great republic wrote the magnificent words of the

Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were

signing a promissory note to which every Anerican was to

fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black

men as well as white men, would be guaranteed to the

inalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It

is obvious today that America has defaulted on this

promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are

concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation,

America has given its colored people a bad check, a check

that has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we

refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We

refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great

vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to

cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the

riches of freedom and security of justice. We have also

come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce

urgency of Now. This is not time to engage in the luxury of

cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy.

Now it the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of

segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now it the time

to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the

solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a

reality to all of God's children. I would be fatal for the nation

to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate

the determination of it's colored citizens. This sweltering

summer of the colored people's legitimate discontent will not

pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and

equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end but a beginning.

Those who hope that the colored Americans needed to blow

off steam and will now be content will have a rude

awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There

will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the colored

citizen is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of

revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation

until the bright day of justice emerges. We can never be

satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of

travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and

the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the

colored person's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a

larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children

are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by

signs stating "for white only." We cannot be satisfied as long

as a colored person in Mississippi cannot vote and a colored

person in New York believes he has nothing for which to

vote. No, no we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied

until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a

mighty stream. I am not unmindful that some of you have

come here out of your trials and tribulations. Some of you

have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you

battered by storms of persecutions and staggered by the

winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of

creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that

unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go

back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina go back to

Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and

ghettos of our modern cities, knowing that somehow this

situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the

valley of dispair. I say to you, my friends, we have the

difficulties of today and tommorrow. I still have a dream. It is

a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a

dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the

true meaning of its creed. We hold thise truths to be

self-evident that all men are created equal. I have a dream

that one day out in the red hills of Georgia the sons of former

slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit

down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream

that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering

with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis

of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little

children will one day live in a nation where they will not be

judged by the color of their skin but by their character. I

have a dream today. I have a dream that one day down in

Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his

lips dripping with the words of interpostion and nullification;

that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and

black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys

and white girls as s)fYers and brothers. I have a dream

today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be

engulfed, every hill shall be exalted and every mountain shall

be made low, the rough places will be made plains and the

crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the

Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. This

is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South

with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the

mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will

be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a

beautiful symphomy of brotherhood. With this faith we will

be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle

together, to go to jail together, to climb up for freedom

together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be

the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with

new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty,

of thee I sing. Land where my father's died, land of the

Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!"

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become

true. So let freedom ring from the hilltops of New

Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of

New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening

Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the

snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from

the curvacious slopes of California. But not only that, let

freedom, ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom

ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi and every

mountainside. When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring

from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and

every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of

God's children, black men and white men, Jews and

Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join

hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual, "Free at last,

free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."