I Have a Dream Speech – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In commemoration of the 50 year Anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr,
below is the full text of Dr. King’s profoundly moving, “I Have a Dream,” speech at the
March on Washington.

Clearly, there is still much work to do to bring Dr. King’s dream to reality.

May freedom ring . . .

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 is 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 100 years later the Negro still is not free.
One hundred years later the life of the Negro is still badly
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 in exile in his own land.
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 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.
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
dmg 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 – 1963
is not an end but a beginning. 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 usuaI.

‘l’here 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 days of justice emerge.

And that is something that I must say to my people who
stand on the worn 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
protests 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
distrust 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.

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 adulthood and robbed of their dignity by signs
stating, ”For Whites Only.”

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 tribulation. 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 South Carolina, go back to Georgia, 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, though, 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, 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
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 chi1dren 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 . . . I have a dream that one day 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, every hill and mountain
shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain,
and the crooked places will be made straight. And the
glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see
it together. 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 he 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 mountain side, 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 t.he snowcapped 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 mountain side.
Let freedom ring . . .

When we allow freedom to ring — when we let it ring from every city 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 Negro spiritual,
“Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, “We are free at last.”