[Vision2020] Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: "I Have a Dream"

Mon Jan 19 08:59:20 PST 2009

Thank you, Tom.

May it be.

Keely
http://keely-prevailingwinds.blogspot.com/

> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> From: thansen at moscow.com
> Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:50:56 +0000
> Subject: [Vision2020] Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: "I Have a Dream"
> 
> Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" Speech
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk
> 
> http://www.notonthepalouse.com/Dream.htm
>  
> ----------------------------
> 
> 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 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, 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 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 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. 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. And 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 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. Some of 
> you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by 
> the 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 to 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."
> 
> ----------------------------
> 
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
> 
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
> 
> 
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