On This Day August 28th, 1963: Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream"

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

Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream"

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand 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 captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still 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 languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.

So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have 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.

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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 slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four 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 the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together 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 with which I return to the South. 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.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/Ihaveadream.htm

[fooj]

1. Thanks for the link...going to listen to it now.

Welcome to DU!

peace.

[Faygo Kid]

2. Thanks. I remember it as an (almost) 12 year old.

Turned 12 the next month. I was already politicized, by the Nixon-Kennedy election, Cuban Missile Crisis, and the civil rights movement, and the impression that Bull Connor had on me. MLK drafted the speech at the Willard Hotel, across from the White House. That's the same hotel at which U.S. Grant coined the term "lobbyists." Had dinner there recently. $180 for two, one glass of wine. I digress. I remember watching the speech. And believing in it. The best for our side always die young. Now I am Lincoln's age when he died. They all die young. Strom Thurmond lived to be 100. It's not fair.

[H2O Man]

3. Thank you

for reminding us.

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5. The Context and a Book for the H2OMan

In 1963 leaders of the civil rights movement decided to organize what became known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Bayard Rustin was given overall control of the march and he managed to persuade the leaders of all the various civil rights groups to participate in the planned protest meeting at the Lincoln Memorial.

The decision to appoint Bayard Rustin as chief organizer was controversial. Roy Wilkins of the NAACP was one of those who was against the appointment. He argued that being a former member of the American Communist Party made him an easy target for the right-wing press. Although Rustin had left the party in 1941, he still retained his contacts with its leaders such as Benjamin Davis.

Wilkins also feared that the fact that Rustin had been imprisoned several times for both refusing to fight in the armed forces and for acts of homosexuality, would be used against him in the days leading up to the march. However, Martin Luther King and Philip Randolph insisted that he was the best person for the job.

Wilkins was right to be concerned about a possible smear campaign against Rustin. Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, had been keeping a file on Rustin for many years. An FBI undercover agent managed to take a photograph of Rustin talking to King while he was having a bath. This photograph was then used to support false stories being circulated that Rustin was having a homosexual relationship with King.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAwashingtonM.htm



What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States (Paperback)
by Dave Zirin

[nevergiveup]

4. Thanks

for reminding us of one of the most important speeches in American history. I can remember as a child traveling in the South with my family and seeing the "colored" signs above rest room doors and water fountains. Even as a very young person I knew something was terribly wrong.
Thank God for this brave/wonderful man and may God bless Mrs King today as she struggles with her health.

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6. Dream Deferred

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

-Langston Hughes