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 Proclamation. This momentous
decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of slaves, who
had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a
joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But 100 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 American 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 no 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.
It 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.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on
the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the
process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful
deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking
from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our
struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow
our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and
again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force
with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the
Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all White people, for
many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence today, have
come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their
freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march
ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees
of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied
as long as the Negro is the victims of unspeakable horrors of police
brutality. 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 fresh from narrow jail
cells. 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 despair. So in though we face
the difficulties of today and tomorrow, 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 these truths to be self-evident;
that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons
of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners 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
the context of 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
interposition 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 sisters 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 symphony 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 prodigious 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 curvaceous 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 village
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 Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at
last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
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