Roll on Mississippi Make Me Feel Like a Child Again

Yard artin 50 uther K ing , J r .

I Accept a Dream

delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

Video Purchase

Off-Site audio mp3 of Address

[Actuality CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio. (ii)]

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.

5 score years agone, a swell American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand up today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of promise to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to cease the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly bedridden past the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later on, the Negro lives on a lone island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of textile prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American club and finds himself an exile in his own state. And and so we've come hither today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation'southward upper-case letter to greenbacks a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Annunciation of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This annotation was a promise that all men, yes, black men every bit well every bit white men, would exist guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Freedom and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory annotation, insofar as her citizens of colour 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."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. Nosotros refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And and so, we've come up to cash this check, a check that will give united states upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have likewise come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to appoint in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to brand real the promises of democracy. Now is the fourth dimension to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to elevator our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. At present is the fourth dimension 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 summertime of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until in that location is an invigorating autumn of liberty and equality. Xix sixty-three is non an end, but a offset. 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 concern equally usual. And in that location volition be neither rest nor serenity in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt volition go on to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

Just in that location 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 usa non seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever behave our struggle on the high aeroplane of dignity and discipline. We must non allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Once more and over again, nosotros must rise to the purple heights of coming together physical forcefulness with soul forcefulness.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not pb us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, equally evidenced by their presence here today, accept come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably jump to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that nosotros shall e'er march ahead.

We cannot plow dorsum.

There are those who are asking the devotees of ceremonious rights, "When will y'all exist satisfied?" We tin 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 ane. We tin can never be satisfied every bit long every bit our children are stripped of their cocky-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." ** We cannot exist satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has naught for which to vote. No, no, nosotros are not satisfied, and we will non be satisfied until "justice rolls downward similar waters, and righteousness similar a mighty stream." ¹

I am not unmindful that some of you take come here out of cracking trials and tribulations. Some of you have come up fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of yous accept come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered past the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You lot have been the veterans of creative suffering. Proceed to work with the organized religion that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, get back to Alabama, go dorsum to S Carolina, go dorsum to Georgia, become dorsum to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be inverse.

Allow us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you lot today, my friends.

Then fifty-fifty though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. Information technology is a dream securely rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation volition rise upwardly and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I accept a dream that 1 day on the scarlet hills of Georgia, the sons of erstwhile slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit downward together at the tabular array of brotherhood.

I take a dream that one twenty-four hour period even the country of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the estrus of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I accept a dream that my 4 trivial children will 1 day alive 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 take a dream that one 24-hour interval, d o wn in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- 1 day right there in Alabama little blackness boys and blackness girls will be able to bring together hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I take a dream today!

I take a dream that one twenty-four hours every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the crude places volition exist made plain, and the crooked places will be made direct; "and the glory of the Lord shall exist revealed and all mankind shall run into it together." ²

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I get back to the South with.

With this organized religion, we volition be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a rock of hope. With this organized religion, we volition exist able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a cute symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we volition be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand for freedom together, knowing that we will be free i day.

And this will be the day -- this volition be the twenty-four hours when all of God'southward children will be able to sing with new significant:

My country 'tis of thee, sweetness state of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim'due south pride,    From every mountainside, permit freedom ring!

And if America is to exist a great nation, this must become truthful.

And and then allow liberty ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Permit freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom band from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Permit freedom band from the snowfall-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom band from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Rock Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Watch Mountain of Tennessee.

Permit liberty ring from every colina and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom band.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let information technology ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every urban center, we will be able to speed upwardly that twenty-four hours when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, volition be able to join hands and sing in the words of the onetime Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Gratis at last!

Give thanks God Omnipotent, we are complimentary at final! ³

---

** = Source audio edited to exclude the content in double cherry asterisks in the to a higher place transcript.

ⁱ Amos 5:24 (rendered precisely in The American Standard Version of the Holy Bible)

² Isaiah 40:four-v (King James Version of the Holy Bible). Quotation marks are excluded from part of this moment in the text because Rex'southward rendering of Isaiah 40:4 does not precisely follow the KJV version from which he quotes (due east.g., "hill" and "mountain" are reversed in the KJV). King's rendering of Isaiah 40:5, nonetheless, is precisely quoted from the KJV.

³ At: http://www.negrospirituals.com/news-vocal/free_at_last_from.htm

Also in this database: Martin Luther King, Jr: A Time to Interruption Silence

Audio Source: Linked directly to: http://www.annal.org/details/MLKDream

Image #i: Wikimedia.org

Prototype #2 Source:.http://www.jfklibrary.org

Paradigm #3: Colorized Screenshot

External Link : http://www.thekingcenter.org/

Page Updated: 2/four/22

U.Southward. Copyright Status: Text = Restricted, seek permission. Copyright inquiries and permission requests may exist directed to: Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the sectional licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. at licensing@i-p-grand.com  or 404 526-8968. Paradigm #ane = Public domain ()per data here). Image #2 = Public domain. Epitome #3 = Fair Employ.

hamiltonwassion.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

Share this post