The South Will Rise Again Song
1000 artin L uther K ing , J r .
I Accept a Dream
delivered 28 Baronial 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.
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[Actuality CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed direct from sound. (2)]
I am happy to join with you today in what will become down in history equally the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
V score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came every bit 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 1 hundred years later, the Negro still is non free. One hundred years afterward, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years subsequently, the Negro lives on a lone island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of textile prosperity. One hundred years afterwards, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American gild and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful status.
In a sense we've come up to our nation's capital letter to cash a bank check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Proclamation of Independence, they were signing a promissory annotation to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a hope 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 bank check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
Just we decline to believe that the banking concern of justice is bankrupt. Nosotros refuse to believe that in that location are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So, we've come to cash this bank check, a check that will requite u.s.a. upon need the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
Nosotros have besides come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of At present. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to have the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. At present is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to ascension from the nighttime and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. At present is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid stone of brotherhood. Now is the fourth dimension to brand 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 summertime of the Negro'due south legitimate discontent will non pass until there is an invigorating autumn of liberty and equality. Nineteen sixty-iii is not an finish, merely a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and volition now be content volition have a rude enkindling if the nation returns to business organisation every bit usual. And in that location 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.
Merely 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 identify, nosotros must non be guilty of wrongful deeds. Permit us not seek to satisfy our thirst for liberty by drinking from the loving cup of bitterness and hatred. Nosotros must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. Nosotros must not let our artistic protestation to degenerate into physical violence. Over again and over again, we must rise to the purple heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead united states of america to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence hither today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they take come to realize that their freedom is inextricably jump to our freedom.
We cannot walk solitary.
And every bit 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 exist satisfied?" We can never be satisfied every bit long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of constabulary brutality. Nosotros can never exist satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot proceeds lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. ** We cannot be satisfied as long equally the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger 1. Nosotros tin never exist satisfied as long every bit our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their nobility by signs stating: "For Whites Only." ** Nosotros 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, nosotros are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream." one
I am non unmindful that some of you have come here out of not bad trials and tribulations. Some of yous take come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for liberty left y'all battered past the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You accept been the veterans of artistic suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go dorsum to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, become dorsum to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation tin can and volition be changed.
Let us non wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And and so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I nonetheless take a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I accept a dream that ane day this nation will rise upwards and alive out the true meaning of its creed: "We agree these truths to be self-axiomatic, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that i twenty-four hours on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will exist able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that 1 day even the land of Mississippi, a country sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an haven of freedom and justice.
I accept a dream that my four little children will ane day alive in a nation where they will not exist judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.
I take a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, d o wn in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- i day right there in Alabama petty blackness boys and black girls will be able to join hands with footling white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that i day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will exist fabricated plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the celebrity of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together." 2
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this organized religion, we will exist able to hew out of the mount of despair a stone of promise. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a cute symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, nosotros will exist able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to become to jail together, to stand for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this volition exist the day -- this volition exist the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My state 'tis of thee, sweetness land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, country of the Pilgrim's pride, From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to exist a great nation, this must become truthful.
And then allow freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Permit freedom band from the mighty mountains of New York.
Permit liberty ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snowfall-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Permit freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Allow freedom ring from Rock Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Watch Mountain of Tennessee.
Let liberty ring from every loma and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, permit freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we let freedom ring, when we allow it band from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we volition be able to speed up that twenty-four hours when all of God's children, blackness men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the quondam Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are gratis at last! 3
** = Source audio edited to exclude the content in double red asterisks in the above transcript.
1 Amos 5:24 (rendered precisely in The American Standard Version of the Holy Bible)
2 Isaiah xl:4-five (King James Version of the Holy Bible). Quotation marks are excluded from part of this moment in the text considering King'south rendering of Isaiah xl:four does not precisely follow the KJV version from which he quotes (e.thou., "hill" and "mountain" are reversed in the KJV). King'due south rendering of Isaiah forty:v, however, is precisely quoted from the KJV.
3 At: http://www.negrospirituals.com/news-vocal/free_at_last_from.htm
Likewise in this database: Martin Luther King, Jr: A Time to Break Silence
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External Link : http://www.thekingcenter.org/
Page Updated: 2/4/22
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Source: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
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