Martin Luther King, Jr.

(1929-1968), the most revered leader of the civil rights movement, was
born in Atlanta, the son of a Baptist clergyman. A graduate of Morehouse College and Boston
University, King was himself ordained in 1947 and became the minister at a church in
Montgomery, Alabama, in 1954. There he spearheaded a year-long boycott of segregated city
buses, which eventually resulted in the system’s integration, and as head of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, he took his crusade against segregation to other Southern
cities. Noted for his commitment to peaceful demonstration and nonviolent resistance, King
and those who protested with him often ended up in jail. An international figure by the 1960s,
he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. King was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis,
Tennessee.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I Have a Dream delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

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 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 still is not free. One hundred years later,

the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains

of discrimination. 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.

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 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 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. 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 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. And there

will be neither rest nor tranquility 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

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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.

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 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 one. 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.” 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, 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―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

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 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. 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 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!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and

mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places

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will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see

it together.”**

This is our hope, and 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.

And 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 Pilgrims’ pride. From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And 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 to ring, when we let it ring from

every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed

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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 Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

*Amos 5:25

**Isaiah 40:4-5

Reference

King, M. L., Jr. (1963, August 28). I have a dream [Speech transcript]. American Rhetoric.
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

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