I Have a Dream (Copypasta)

"I Have a Dream" Speech by Dr. Martin Luther King jr.

• Good to use on MLK Day Raid.
• The familiar "I have a dream" part of the speech starts about two-thirds through it.

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.
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 drrug 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 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!

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 a sign 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 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 roooted 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 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 Pilgrim's 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,
when we allow freedom ring,
when we let it ring from every village 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!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

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