The Speech

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 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!
 

  George Cassutto's Cyberlearning World: 
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