Scribd
Upload
123 views1 page

I Have a Dream Speech Transcript

Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech calls for justice and equality for African Americans. He describes how, 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans still face poverty and exclusion. King urges action instead of gradualism, and calls for justice and brotherhood and an end to racial injustice. He dreams that one day people will be judged not by skin color but character, and that all of God's children will be able to sing of freedom together in America.

Uploaded by

April Joy Malaluan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
123 views1 page

I Have a Dream Speech Transcript

Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech calls for justice and equality for African Americans. He describes how, 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans still face poverty and exclusion. King urges action instead of gradualism, and calls for justice and brotherhood and an end to racial injustice. He dreams that one day people will be judged not by skin color but character, and that all of God's children will be able to sing of freedom together in America.

Uploaded by

April Joy Malaluan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

I HAVE A DREAM by 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. 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. In a sense
we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. 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 quick sands 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.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and the 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. 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. And 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. 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… 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 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.

You might also like