Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream"

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 Negro 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 one hundred years later, the Negro still is not
free. One hundred years later, the life of the
Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of
segregation and the chains of discrimination.
One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a
lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast
ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years
later, the Negro is still languished in the corners
of American society and finds himself an exile in
his own land. And so we've 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
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
the unalienable 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 the Negro people a bad
check, a check which 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. And so we have come
to cash this check, a check that will give us
upon demand the riches of freedom and the
security of justice.

We have also come to this 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
promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise
from the dark and desolate valley of segregation
to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is 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 for all
of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the
urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer
of the Negro'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 Negro
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
Negro 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 ever
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
here today, have come to realize that their
destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they
have come to realize that their freedom is
inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot
walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that
we shall always 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 victim of the 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 a
Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro 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 great 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 the
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 northern cities,
knowing that somehow this situation can and
will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley
of despair, I say to you today, my friends. And
so even 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
injustice, 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
content 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; 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
exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be
made low, the rough places will be made plain,
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 stand up for freedom together,
knowing that we will be free one day. And this
will be the 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 fathers
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.
And 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 Lookout Mountain of
Tennessee.
Let freedom ring - from every hill and molehill of
Mississippi, from every mountainside, let
freedom ring!

And when this happens, when we allow freedom
to 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."