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."