Remember and Celebrate

One of the finest speeches ever made.

"I have a Dream"

by Martin Luther King Jr
[Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963]

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand 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 captivity.


But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still 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 languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling 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 would be guaranteed 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 the Negro people a bad 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. 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 rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. 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 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 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 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 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 Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never 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 cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution 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 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, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, 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 a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four 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 the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, 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 with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew our 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.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a 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 a. 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 snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks 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 every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

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!"

http://www.wmich.edu/politics/mlk/mlk.jpg

Bump!

Absolutely one of the best speeches of all time!!

Agreed!!

http://www.africawithin.com/mlking/mlk06.jpg

I agree it's a great speech. One thing I couldn't help but wonder, though. Do you think some people have misinterpreted the bit about "cashing a check" to mean that black people in the U.S. should be getting monetary reparation for slavery?

Read this, for example: http://www.ustreas.gov/irs/ci/tax_fraud/ir2002_08.htm

Hell yeah. One of the most influential men ever in America, if not the world. Amazing speech.

I wonder what would have happened had he not been assassinated? That guy had some answers...

Thanks Odin I have never read that before

In a sermon he delivered on February 4, 1968, Dr. King told
the congregation at Ebenezer Baptist Church:

If any of you are around when I have to
meet my day, I don't want a long funeral.
And if you get somebody to deliver the
eulogy, tell him not to talk too
long...Tell them not to mention that I
have a Nobel Peace Prize. That isn't
important. Tell them not to mention that
I have three or four hundred other
awards. That's not important. Tell them
not to mention where I went to school.
I'd like somebody to mention that day,
that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to
give his life serving others. I'd like
for somebody to say that day, that Martin
Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.
I want you to say that day that I tried
to be right on the war question. I want
you to be able to say that day, that I
did try to feed the hungry. And I want
you to be able to say that day that I did
try in my life to clothe those who were
naked. I want you to say on that day,
that I did try in my life to visit those
who were in prison. I want you to say
that I tried to love and serve humanity.

I had never read it either. I appreciate the fact that he made it very clear that he was not taking up arms against white people, but rather taking up arms against injustice. We need more of that type of thinking in our world today.

I get the sense from reading it that he was truely interested in racial equality, rather than revenge etc.

I'll hum "Pride (in the name of love)" the rest of the day for MLK.

Unfortunate that there has not been, or likely will ever be someone of his caliber, and unwavering kindness and compassion to all, who will voice their opinion and be heard and affect so many.



Related article,


AP) -- For many, he is frozen in a single, triumphant moment, the stirring cadences of his "I Have a Dream" speech rolling over the crowds gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in the summer of 1963.

On the federal holiday honoring his birth, Martin Luther King Jr. is usually remembered as the beloved winner of great civil rights victories.

But there's another, lesser-known King -- the man who moved into a drafty, run-down flat in a Chicago slum to call attention to the plight of poor urban blacks, and who preached fiery sermons against the war in Vietnam, denouncing "Western arrogance."

In the last five years of his life, King ventured down a contentious, sometimes lonely path as he tried to refashion the civil rights movement he helped inspire. This often overlooked period of his life is the subject of "Citizen King," a documentary airing on PBS stations at 9 p.m. EST Monday, the King holiday. (Check local listings.)

"We felt that there was a much more complicated and more challenging voice that emerged after the March on Washington," said Orlando Bagwell, who directed, wrote and co-produced the documentary with Noland Walker. As the nation celebrates the 75th anniversary of King's birth, "we should engage in a much more critical discussion of King and talk about all the things we agree with and disagree with."

King's final years have been receiving more attention from academics and historians concerned about the one-dimensional, idealized version of him that has come to dominate America's memory.

Baptist minister and scholar Michael Eric Dyson proposed a 10-year moratorium on listening to or reading "I Have a Dream," in his 2000 book, "I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King Jr." And in a 1993 op-ed piece, longtime activist Julian Bond decried how America honors "an antiseptic hero. We have stripped his life of controversy, and celebrate the conventional instead."

'Breaking out of those confines'
"People tend to want a manageable hero, one who can fit into our own relatively narrow confines of what is important in America," said Vincent Harding, author of "Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero." "And King it seems to me was constantly breaking out of those confines."

The documentary combines recollections and eyewitness accounts from friends, civil rights leaders, journalists, officials and historians with King's own words and footage from those turbulent times. It spans the period just before King's hopeful "I Have a Dream" speech on August 28, 1963, to his assassination on a Memphis motel balcony on April 4, 1968.

The first half of the two-hour film charts King's success at pressuring downtown Birmingham, Alabama, merchants to desegregate stores, after images of protesters attacked by police dogs and fire hoses horrified the nation. In Washington, King spoke of his dream that his four children would one day be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. He received the Nobel Peace Prize the next year.

The film's second hour chronicles a turning point, when King was faced with increasingly impatient blacks who adopted the "black power" slogan and a more militant attitude. Riots exploded in the Watts section of Los Angeles, and when King attended community meetings, blacks booed him and told him he wasn't needed there.

"As he got to the dilemma of poor blacks in the inner cities, he was becoming more radical," journalist David Halberstam says in the film.

'A man who asked hard questions'
King was also at the center of another debate dividing the nation: the Vietnam War. In an April 1967 speech at U.N. Plaza in New York, he deplored how "the promises of the Great Society have been shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam, making the poor white and Negro bear the heaviest burden both at the front and at the home."

King embarked on the Poor People's Campaign in the final year of his life, traveling from city to city and listening to individuals' stories. "We are dealing with issues that cannot be solved without the nation spending billions of dollars on the radical redistribution of economic power," he explained to one group.

In the midst of that campaign, he went to Memphis to support striking sanitation workers. After a stunned nation learned of his death there, riots swept dozens of cities, and the interpretation of his life began.

While King should be remembered for his "I Have a Dream" speech, he should also be remembered "as the critic of the economic order, the critic of American imperial designs overseas, of our gross maldistribution of wealth and power," said Bond, chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, "a man who asked hard questions and demanded difficult answers.

"Unless you remember all of that, you're not remembering the whole man."

Letter from Birmingham Jail -- blows me away every time.