Martin Luther King's "I Have
a Dream" speech, August 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
Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon 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 one hundred
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 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.
It would be fatal for the nation
to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of
its 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, 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 despair. I say to you, my friends, we have 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 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 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 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 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."
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