“I have a
dream” is the title of the most famous speech by Martin Luther King. It marked a
turning point of the Civil Rights Movement. He gave it on August 28, 1963 in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.
It is generally
considered as one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century.
According to John Lewis, who also spoke on that day in the name of the
Coordinating Committee of the non-violent students: “By speaking as he did, he educated,
he inspired, he guided, not simply the people who were there, but also people
everywhere in America as well as the generations to come…”
Full text
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 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 languish in the corners of American society and finds himself an 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 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 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 colour are concerned. Instead of honouring 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. 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 quicksand’s 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 tranquillity 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 marvellous 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 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 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, 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... 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 they 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 colour 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, every hill and 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 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.
This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children 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. 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, and 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!"
Floriska Pottier, pupil at Massillon Ensemble Scolaire International, adds:
Martin Luther
King’s biography
Martin Luther
King Junior was born in Atlanta (Georgia) on January 15th, 1929 into a pastor's family and lived therefore in a rather favourable social milieu. In 1954, he
became a Baptist pastor himself and preached in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1955, he became
leader of the movement that supported Rosa Parks, a woman who was stopped by
the police for having refused to give up her place to a white man in a bus; he called
for a boycott of the bus company; it lasted a year. The Supreme Court condemned
the company.
Martin Luther
King created the Conference of Christian leaders of the South with other black
personalities and became its president. Supporter of nonviolence, he decided to
spread the struggle for civil rights of Blacks in all of the United States.
In 1963, he became
de facto leader of the campaign for civil rights, demanding voting rights and better
education for Blacks, and the end of segregation. He was arrested repeatedly.
In his "I have a dream" speech of August 28th, 1963, in front of 250,000
people, he made an appeal for a country where all men would share the same
rights in justice and peace.
In 1964,
Martin Luther King received the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming its youngest recipient.
In 1967, he
declared his opposition to the war in Vietnam, saying that the United States was
colonising the country. He also got involved in the struggle against poverty
and organised the campaign of the poor to address the problems of economic injustice.
He was assassinated
by a white segregationist on April 4th, 1968 in Memphis where he had gone to
support the dustmen’s strike.
Historical context
Though slavery
was abolished in 1865 in the United States thanks to the thirteenth amendment
of the Constitution promoted by Abraham Lincoln, Blacks and Whites still did not
have the same rights a hundred years later.
Indeed, the
Blacks got citizenship, voting rights and equality in law, but in practice
segregation existed regarding access to jobs, transport and to various public
utilities especially in the southern states like Alabama.
Martin Luther
King, a Protestant pastor, campaigned for the end of poverty and racial
discrimination in the United States using non-violent means: protest marches,
bus boycotts, refusal to retaliate violently to provocations, etc.
In
Washington, on August 28th, 1963 he led the "walk for jobs and
equality" organised by several organizations promoting minority rights. In
front of the Lincoln Memorial, he pronounced a speech which became famous.
Thanks to the
success of the speech, King was named “Personality of the year” by Time
Magazine in 1963. A year later, segregation was abolished, which proves how
effective the speech was in galvanising those who had heard it. The same year,
he became the youngest person to be given the Nobel Peace Prize.
Analysis of
the speech
Martin Luther
King gave hundreds of speeches. As pastor, he had practice giving sermons and
he met other speakers. He knew all the rules of a good speech: structure,
coherence and the need for a strong message. Besides his rhetorical skills, he
introduced into his texts several carefully chosen quotes as well as political
and religious allusions to reinforce his message.
His seventeen-minute speech was a singular moment in the United States’ history.
The speech began
with a direct reference to President Abraham Lincoln, in front of the statue of
whom Martin Luther King stood (“Five score years ago, a great American, in
whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation.”). King
was echoing Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address: “Four score and seven years ago
our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty,
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
After this
historical reference to Lincoln, King repeats four times “100 years later” to
make the link between present and past, and to show that slavery, officially
abolished a century earlier, still existed under other forms (“One hundred
years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a
vast ocean of material prosperity.”). Using several metaphors, he highlights the
unbearable situation of Blacks and then launches his call for action, repeating
“now is the time.” King then says that there will be no rest as long as Blacks do
not obtain their civil rights. One hundred years after abolishing slavery, the
hour has come for equal rights. Using biblical-style prose, King says that there
will be light after darkness: “I have the dream that all dales will be noticed,
that all hills will be smoothed, that all rocks will be levelled off and that
the glory of the Lord will be revealed to all men” (a reference to the book of
Isaiah in the Old Testament).
In the last
part of his speech, King says he is convinced his dream is going to come true: “with
this faith, we will tear off from the mountain of despair the jewel of hope.
With this faith, we will be capable of transforming the cacophony of dissension
into a splendid symphony of brotherhood.” Through universal notions like nature, music, hope and despair, King puts his faith in the Eternal,
knowing that in a country that is deeply religious, nobody will dare to
contradict the words of the Almighty: “we will be capable of going to prison
together, of standing together for freedom, knowing that we will be free one
day.”
After further
references to Lincoln, to the Declaration of Independence, and to the Bible, King
concludes his speech with a reference to an old slave song, a Negro spiritual
called “Free at Last” (“we are finally free!”) which the majority of his
audience would have known.
Conclusion
The waking
dream of Martin Luther King is an amazing speech, poetic and musical. It is
also like a prophetic sermon, with metaphors and repetitions (like: "Let
freedom ring" repeated nine times, and “I have a dream" repeated
seven times).
Can a speech really change the course of History? What is sure is that the speech by Martin Luther King galvanised Blacks and persuaded a majority of Whites that things had to change… His speech instilled courage and determination in those who heard it then and even in people today.
Can a speech really change the course of History? What is sure is that the speech by Martin Luther King galvanised Blacks and persuaded a majority of Whites that things had to change… His speech instilled courage and determination in those who heard it then and even in people today.
