Wednesday, January 15, 1997EQUALITY:
Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream for racial justiceThe
keynote address for the March on Washington, delivered before the
Lincoln Memorial 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.
Fivescore 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; 100 years
later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the
manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination; 100 years
later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst
of a vast ocean of material prosperity; 100 years later, the Negro
is still languished in the corners of American society and finds
himself in exile in his own land.
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 the 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 in so far 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." 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 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 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. 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 to
business as usual.
There will be neither rest nor tranquillity 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. This offense we share mounted to
storm the battlements of injustice must be carried forth by a
biracial army. 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
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, 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
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 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 the 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
dream 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 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, sons of
former slaves and 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 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 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, that 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, 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 hear 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 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 mountain side, let freedom ring" Â
and 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 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 we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from
every village and hamlet, from every state and city, we will be
able to speed up that day when all of God’s children  black
men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants
 will be able to join hands and to sing in the words of the
old Negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last; thank God
Almighty, we are free at last."