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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.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I have a dream today.
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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.
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I have a dream today.
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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.
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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.
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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!"
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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.
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Let freedom ring from the snow-capped
Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
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But not only that; let freedom ring
from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
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Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain
of Tennessee.
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Let freedom ring from every hill
and molehill of Mississippi - from every mountainside.
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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!"
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