Show Have a Dream The year wai 1963 Deipite apposition from the govemon of Alabama and Mininippi Prei John F Kennedy authorized federal manhali to eiont a few Mack itudenu to register at the University of Mississippi and the University of Alabama "Bull" Connor head of Birmingham Alabama's police department ordered his officers to turn fire hoses and police dogs on young demonstrators as television cameras captured this horrible scene the nation gasped in disbelief and revulsion Medgar Evers a NAACP field secretary in Jackson Miss was murdered on his from porch on June Riots occurred throughout the summer The nation stood on the brink of racial civil war It needed a prophet who could help see through the smoke left by gunpowder and bombs Standing on Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC on Aug 28 1963 television cameras allowed the entire nation to hear and see Dr Martin Luther King plead for justice and freedom His wife Coretta once commented “At that moment it seemed as if the Kingdom of God appeared But h only lasted a moment" What follows is his message that opened the eyes of Americans for generations 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 Fivescore yean ago a great A men can 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 yean later the Negro still is not free one hundred yean later the life of the Negro it still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination one hundred yean later the Negro lives an a island of poverty in the lonely midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity one hundred yean later the Negro is still languished in the oomen of American society and finds himself in exile in hit own land So we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition In a tense 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 the promise that all men yes black men at well at 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 in so far as her citizens of color are concerned Instead of honoring this sacred obligati on America has given the Negro people a bad check a check which hat come back marked "insufficient funds" We refute to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation And so we've crane 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 Ibis is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquil izing 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 nxk of brotherhood now is the time loo make justice a reality far all God’s children It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment Ibis sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality Nineteen sixty-thre- e 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 too 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 it 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 too 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 while 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 Ibis offense we share mounted to storm the battlements of injustice must be carried forth by biracial army We cannot walk alone And at we walk we mutt make the pledge that we shall always march ahead We carnal turn back There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights "When will you be satisfied?" We can never he satisfied as long at the Negro it the vittim of the II T A unspeakable horrors of police brutality We can never be satisfied as long at our bodies heavy with fatigue of travel cantiol gain lodging in the mutels of the highways and the hotels of the cities We cannot be satisfied as lung as the Negro's basic mobility it from a smaller ghetto to a larger one d arid robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for We can never be satisfied at long as our children are stripped of their whites only" We cannot be satisfied as long at a Negro in Mississippi cantiol vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote No we are not satisfied and we will not be sautfied until justice rods down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream I am not unmindful that some of you come here out of excessive trials and tribulation 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 petsectaiun 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 Souh Carolina go back to Georgia go back to Louisiana go back to the slums and ghettos of die northern cities knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed Let us not wallow in the valley of despair So I say to you my friends that even though we must face the difficulties of today and tomorrow I still have a dream It is a drawn deeply rooted in the American dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed we hold that all men are created equal these truths to be I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi a sure 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 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 todayl words 1 have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists with its governor having hit lips dripping with the of interposition and nullification that one day right there in Alabama little Mack boys and Mack girls will be able to join hands with self-hou- self-evide- Martin Luther King Jr was the conscience of his generation A Southerner a black man he gazed on the great wall of segregation and saw that the power of tove could bring it down He helped us overcome our ignorance of one anotherHis ” life informed us his dreams sustain us yet Put of the citation lead at the awarding of the Pieiidential Medal of Freedom CRUISE SHIP JOBS! Students needed! Earn $2000 monthly Summer Holidays Fulltime World travel Caribbean Hawaii Europe Mexico Tour guides Gift Shop Sales Deck Hands Casino Workers etc No experience necessary Ext C147 CALL: 602-680-46- 47 while boys and white girls as sitters and brothen 1 have a dream todayl 1 have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted every hill and mountain shall be made low the rough places shall be made plain and the crooked places shall be made straight and the glory of the Lord will 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 prey together to suuggle together to go to jail together to stand up far 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 the new meaning— 'tay country tis of the sweet land of liberty of the I sing land where my fathers died land of the pilgrim's pride from every mountain side let freedom ring"— end if America is to be a great nation this must become true So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire Let freedom ring form the mighty mountains of New York Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania Rockies of Colorada Let freedom ring from the Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California But not only that Let freedom ring from Slone 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 we allow freedom to ring when we let it ring from every village and hamlet from every state and city we will be aMe to speed up that day when all of God's children— Black men and white men Jews and Gentiles Catholics and Protestants— will he aMe to join hands and to sing fat the words of the old Negro spiritual "Free at last free at last thank God Almighty we are free at snow-cappe- last" d |