“I Have A Dream” Essay, Research Paper
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Martin Luther King, “I Have a Dream,” 28 August 1963
Occasion: The keynote speech at the 1963 March on Washington for
Jobs and Freedom, King gave the address from the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial to about 250,000 people assembled before him. The
speech was also broadcast on TV and published in newspapers. Since
1963, King’s “I Have a Dream” speech has become the most famous
public address of 20th century America. The immediate effect of the
speech also shaped American history. Julian Bond, a fellow
participant in the civil rights movement and student of King, would
write, “King’s dramatic 1963 ‘I Have a Dream’ speech before the
Lincoln Memorial cemented his place as first among equals in civil
rights leadership; from this first televised mass meeting, an American
audience saw and heard the unedited oratory of America’s finest
preacher, and for the first time, a mass white audience heard the
undeniable justice of black demands” (Seattle Times, 4 April 1993).
“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.
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But 100 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
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. And so we’ve 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 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 hoped 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 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
signs 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. Some
of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you
battered by 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 – 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 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. 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.
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 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. 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, and 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!”
Where the text can be found: Congressional Record, 88th Congress,
(Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1963) Washington, vol. 109,
pt. 12, pp. 16241-16242. The speech has been widely anthologized.
Special distribution copy of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech: The normal
Douglass policies regarding copyright and use have been waived for a special
distribution copy of King’s speech. It is available here: ihaveadream.txt.
Copyright ? 1997-1999 Douglass Project. All rights reserved.
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