I have the pleasure to 
present to you,
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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 black 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 years later,
the black individual still is not free.
One hundred years later,
the life of the black individual is
still sadly crippled by
the manacles of segregation and
the chains of discrimination.
One hundred years later,
the black individual lives on a lonely
island of poverty in
the midst of a vast ocean
of material prosperity.
One hundred years later,
the black individual is still languished in
the corners of American society
and finds himself in
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 black people a bad check,
a check which 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 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 of God's children.
It would be fatal for
the nation to overlook
the urgency of the moment.
This sweltering summer of the
black individual's legitimate discontent
will not pass until
there is an invigorating autumn
of freedom and equality.
1963 is not an end,
but a beginning.
And those who hope that
the black individual 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 black individual 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 black
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 black individual 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 black individual'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 black individual in Mississippi cannot
vote and a black individual 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
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 Georgia,
go back to South Carolina,
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.
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 fathers 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.
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 black spiritual:
"Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty,
we are free at last!"
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