Again I Must Face a Sparda

M artin L uther Chiliad ing , J r .

I Have a Dream

delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

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[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed direct from sound. (ii)]

I am happy to join with you lot today in what will go downwardly in history every bit the greatest sit-in for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a dandy American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came equally a not bad buoy low-cal 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 i hundred years afterward, the Negro still is non free. I hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. Ane hundred years afterward, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast bounding main of cloth prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own country. And then we've come hither today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come up to our nation's uppercase to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Annunciation of Independence, they were signing a promissory notation to which every American was to fall heir. This notation was a promise that all men, yes, blackness men also 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 annotation, 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 pass up to believe that the banking company of justice is broke. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the corking vaults of opportunity of this nation. And and then, we've come up to cash this check, a cheque that will requite united states of america 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 fourth dimension to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. At present 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. At present is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the fourth dimension to brand justice a reality for all of God's children.

Information technology 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 at that place is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 19 60-3 is not an finish, but a beginning. And those who promise that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will at present be content volition have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business equally usual. And there will exist neither residual nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will go along to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright twenty-four hour period 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. Once more and again, nosotros must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical strength with soul forcefulness.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not atomic number 82 us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced past their presence hither today, accept come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably jump to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall ever march ahead.

Nosotros cannot plough back.

In that location are those who are request the devotees of civil rights, "When will yous be satisfied?" We can never exist satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. Nosotros tin can never exist satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot proceeds lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. ** We cannot be satisfied as long every bit the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. Nosotros tin can never exist satisfied every bit long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their nobility by signs stating: "For Whites Just." ** 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 nosotros volition not exist satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness similar a mighty stream." ¹

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. And some of y'all accept come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left y'all dilapidated by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of artistic suffering. Go along to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Become back to Mississippi, become 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 accept a dream that one day this nation will rise up and alive out the truthful significant of its creed: "Nosotros hold these truths to exist self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that i day on the crimson hills of Georgia, the sons of erstwhile slaves and the sons of former slave owners will exist able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I accept a dream that 1 solar day even the state of Mississippi, a country sweltering with the estrus of injustice, sweltering with the estrus of oppression, will be transformed into an haven of freedom and justice.

I take a dream that my four little children will one mean solar day live in a nation where they volition not be judged past the color of their peel but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I take a dream that i day, d o wn in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- ane day right at that place in Alabama petty black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I accept a dream today!

I have a dream that one 24-hour interval every valley shall exist exalted, and every colina and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will exist fabricated obviously, and the kleptomaniacal places volition be made direct; "and the celebrity of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together." ²

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I become back to the S with.

With this organized religion, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of promise. With this religion, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a cute symphony of alliance. With this religion, nosotros will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand for freedom together, knowing that we volition be gratuitous one solar day.

And this will be the mean solar day -- this will be the day when all of God'due south children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweetness country of liberty, of thee I sing. State where my fathers died, country of the Pilgrim's pride,    From every mountainside, let liberty ring!

And if America is to be a corking nation, this must go true.

And and so let liberty 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 snowfall-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Allow freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

Merely non only that:

Allow freedom band from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout man Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, allow liberty ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when nosotros let it ring from every village and every village, from every state and every city, we will exist able to speed up that twenty-four hours when all of God'due south children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, volition exist able to bring together hands and sing in the words of the one-time Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! ^three

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** = Source audio edited to exclude the content in double red asterisks in the above transcript.

¹ Amos v:24 (rendered precisely in The American Standard Version of the Holy Bible)

² Isaiah twoscore:4-5 (Male monarch James Version of the Holy Bible). Quotation marks are excluded from part of this moment in the text considering Male monarch'southward rendering of Isaiah 40:iv does not precisely follow the KJV version from which he quotes (e.g., "loma" and "mountain" are reversed in the KJV). King'south rendering of Isaiah 40:5, however, is precisely quoted from the KJV.

³ At: http://www.negrospirituals.com/news-song/free_at_last_from.htm

Also in this database: Martin Luther King, Jr: A Time to Break Silence

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Folio Updated: 2/4/22

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