Martin Luther King Jr.'s I have a
Dream Speech
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Background
On August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
in Washington, D.C., the African-American civil-rights movement
reached its high-water mark when Martin Luther King, Jr.
spoke to the over 200,000 people attending his March on
Washington. The demonstrators--black and white, poor and
rich--had come to the nation's capital to demand voting
rights and equal opportunity for African Americans, and
to appeal for an end to racial segregation and discrimination.
With the statue of the Great Emancipator behind him, King,
evoked the incomparable speaking talents he had developed
while a Baptist preacher to articulate how the "Negro
is still not free." He told of the struggle ahead,
the importance of nonviolence, and then he spoke of his
dream of the future. The famous "I Have a Dream"
passage of the address was actually improvised by King,
who departed from his planned speech midway to make oratory
history. In the year after the March on Washington, the
civil rights movement achieved two of its greatest successes:
the ratification of the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the Constitution,
which abolished the poll tax and thus a barrier to poor
African-American voters in the South, and the passage of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination
in employment and education, and outlawed racial segregation
in public facilities. On October 14, 1964, Martin Luther
King, who was increasingly regarded as not only a symbol
of the civil rights movement but of America itself, was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Four years later, he was
killed by a sniper's bullet while standing on a motel balcony
in Memphis, Tennessee.
"I Have A Dream"
By Dr. Martin L. King Jr.
[Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington
D.C. on August 28, 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 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. So we've 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 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 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, 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. 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 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 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 ever 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. 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 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. Some of you have come from areas where
your quest for freedom left you battered by the 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 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,
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 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 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 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
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. 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 stand up
for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
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 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 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
to 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 Negro
spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty,
we are free at last."
The End
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