Have A Dream
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial
in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963
Audio Of Speech
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.
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
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.
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. This note was a promise that
all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights
of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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 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 have 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 rise from the dark and desolate valley
of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.
Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity
to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift
our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice
to the solid rock of brotherhood.
Have A Dream Continued