The address to civil rights marchers by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 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 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 quick sands 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. 1963 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. 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!"
