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28 augustus 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 whithering 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 Anerican 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 quicksand of racial injustice to the solid
rock of brotherhood.
Now is the time to
make justice a reality to all of God's children.
I 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.
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 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 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 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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