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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 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 is still
not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly
crippled by the manacle 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 a
shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our Nation's Capital to cash a check. When the
architects of our great 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 to the inalienable 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
that 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 security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce
urgency of Now. This is not 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 promise 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 to all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and
to underestimate the determination of it's colored citizens. 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. 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 ever 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
selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for white 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 your trials and
tribulations. 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
storms of persecutions 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 modern 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,
that even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow. I still
have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted 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 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; that one day right down 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 every mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains
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 that I will 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 climb up for freedom 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 father's 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. So let
freedom ring from the 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 every hill and molehill of Mississippi and every
mountainside.

And when this happens, when we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from
every tenement 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 spiritual, "Free at last, free at
last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."