MARTIN LUTHER KING JR
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. “I Have a Dream”
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 all stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon 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 one hundred years later, the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in corners of the American society and finds himself in an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition….
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 children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: “FOR WHITES ONLY”. No, no, we are not satisfied and we won’t be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness rolls down like a mighty stream”. I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Go back to Alabama-- Georgia, go back to 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.
And 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
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 all stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon 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 one hundred years later, the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in corners of the American society and finds himself in an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition….
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 children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: “FOR WHITES ONLY”. No, no, we are not satisfied and we won’t be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness rolls down like a mighty stream”. I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Go back to Alabama-- Georgia, go back to 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.
And 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