In 1963, MLK, Jr. gave his momentous “I Have a Dream” Speech to 250 thousand people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
The date is August 28th, Wednesday, and today I’m coming to you from Portland, OR.
On this day in 1963 Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” Speech as part of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
MLK addressed a crowd of approximately 250,000 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The whole March is generally regarded as the impetus for the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
As a Reverend, MLK’s speech contained plenty of language from the Christian Bible. It also contains allusions to Shakespeare, as well as the popular hymn “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” the American Declaration of Independence, and President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
As MLK walked off the stage to a moved crowd, he gave the typed copy of his speech to the volunteer security guard George Raveling, who still has it.
In the days following the speech, television, radio stations, and newspapers (including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post) alike praised King’s eloquence and delivery. The speech made such an impact on the “American consciousness” as to compel the FBI to add MLK to a list of persons who were threats to national security.
In lieu of a poem, today we’re featuring an abridged version from the “I Have a Dream” Speech. I’ll do my best to do it justice.
Excerpt from “I Have a Dream” Speech.
Five score years ago, a great American…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 captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free…One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity…
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…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… 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…
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy… Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a 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 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 that one day every valley shall be exhalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and…all flesh shall see it together.
…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…
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true…
…when we allow freedom 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…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!”