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've 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've 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 sixtythree

is not an end but a beginning

And 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

And 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 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 the negro'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 a sign stating

For Whites Only 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

And some of you have come from areas

where your quest 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 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 selfevident

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 there 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 and this is the faith that I 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 snowcapped

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 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!