Dan Murphy
We are family.
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2000
- Messages
- 84,095
We Shall Overcome--sound/vid link
Today we recall and celebrate his birthday, a national holiday.
Let us always remember Martin Luther King, Jr's philosophy of nonviolence of change; it works.
His vision of a land where little black boys and girls in the South and North
would one day hold hands with little white boys and girls was stated on a warm summer day in 1963.
Let us always remember Martin Luther King, Jr's philosophy of nonviolence of change; it works.
His vision of a land where little black boys and girls in the South and North
would one day hold hands with little white boys and girls was stated on a warm summer day in 1963.
I Have a Dream speech.
1963
5 years later he would be dead.
2003
Andrew Franklin White-Cleary looks at the words, now
inscribed at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
I have a dream
Of a place where people live in perfect harmony.
a place where there are no drugs, no violence,
no homeless, no hunger...
Lets care about the one by our side,
Lets gather together and make a chain of love and peace,
Lets make this world the best place to live!
I have a dream.
---Maria Luiza, English Forever School, Santa Branca, SP, BRAZIL
Hard to argue with the precepts of one of the finest
speeches the world has ever heard, IMO.
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 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 our Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to
fall heir. This note was the 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 in so far
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." We refuse to believe that there
are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
And so we've 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 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 God's children. It would be
fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the movement. 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 and 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.
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 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 and they have come to realize that their freedom is
inextricably bound to our freedom. This offense we share mounted to storm the
battlements of injustice must be carried forth by a biracial army. 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 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 selfhood
and robbed of their dignity by signs 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, 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 excessive 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 Louisiana; go back to the
slums and ghettos of the northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation
can, and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
So I say to you, my friends, that even though we must face the difficulties of
today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the
American 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, sons of former slaves
and 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 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 every valley shall be exalted, every hill and
mountain shall be made low, the rough places shall be made plain, and the
crooked places shall be made straight and the glory of the Lord will 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 hear 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 go to
jail 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.
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 the 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 we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and
hamlet, from every state and city, we will be able to speed up that day when all
of God's children - black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and
Protestants - will be able to join hands and to sing in the words of the old
Negro spiritual, Free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, we are
free at last.
Part of his Free at Last speech link-click here
.
