"I have a dream...."

[The Vorlon]

August 28, 1963

I Have A Dream
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand 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, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still 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 languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling 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 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 color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad 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 rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. 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 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 their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall 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 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 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 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 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, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, 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 slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four 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 the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together 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 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 with which I return to the South. 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 when all of God's children will be able to sing with a 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 snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks 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 every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let 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!"

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A brilliant speech in writing, even better when you hear it... can't describe why, but King had a certain way of speaking...

[ilikeverin]

A brilliant speech in writing, even better when you hear it... can't describe why, but King had a certain way of speaking...

He was a baptist minister, I think that shoudl be enough explanation

[Redefeatbush04]

King was a magnificent writer/orator. I actually think his best work was his letter from Birminham jail, but this speech is still spectacular

[A18]

I get everything about this topic except what it has to do with Presidential Election Trends.

[The Vorlon]

I get everything about this topic except what it has to do with Presidential Election Trends.

Dr. King's speech has some very, very good advice for the Democratic party, if they want to reverse their losing trend and reclaim the moral high ground...

Here are a few lines I'd like to see Democrats both quote and actually believe...

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.

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.

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 their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

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 plain, and the crooked places will be made straight

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

MLK opposed the Vietnam war.
Conservatives would hate him if he was around today.

[J. J.]

MLK opposed the Vietnam war.
Conservatives would hate him if he was around today.

Well, here is what Dr. King really said:

A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor. [/i]


http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html

He first is complaining about the cost and second about how we're sending troops there, basically the draft.

Now, on the first, cost is a conservative issue.  He goes further to say, in effect, "This is draining funds from programs I want."  I would argue that cost was important, but I'm not so sure that he would have approved how those programs developed in the 30 years after this speech.  On thast, I'm more in agreement with Malcolm X.

On the second point, there were conservatives who opposed the draft even at roughly the same time.  James C. Miller, III, later Reagan's head of OMB, and a (conservative) candidate for US Senate from Virginia in 1994, actually wrote a book c. 1970, calling for the abolition of the draft, including the grounds that minorities were more likely to get drafted.

Ironically, the only serious proposal for a draft recently was from Charles Wrangel, a liberal, African American Democratic Representative from NY.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Thanks to the "liberal" media, good luck on getting a copy of the award winning documentary "Eyes on the prize" on MLK.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14801-2005Jan16.html

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

MLK opposed the Vietnam war.
Conservatives would hate him if he was around today.

Well, here is what Dr. King really said:

A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor. [/i]


http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html

He first is complaining about the cost and second about how we're sending troops there, basically the draft.

Now, on the first, cost is a conservative issue.  He goes further to say, in effect, "This is draining funds from programs I want."  I would argue that cost was important, but I'm not so sure that he would have approved how those programs developed in the 30 years after this speech.  On thast, I'm more in agreement with Malcolm X.

On the second point, there were conservatives who opposed the draft even at roughly the same time.  James C. Miller, III, later Reagan's head of OMB, and a (conservative) candidate for US Senate from Virginia in 1994, actually wrote a book c. 1970, calling for the abolition of the draft, including the grounds that minorities were more likely to get drafted.

Ironically, the only serious proposal for a draft recently was from Charles Wrangel, a liberal, African American Democratic Representative from NY.

It's Bush who started this war in Iraq, you can quit trying to blame it on liberals.

[TX_1824]

Just a question, and I'm sure about the answer, but would MLK support affirmative action?

August 28, 1963

I Have A Dream
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have a dream that my four 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.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Just a question, and I'm sure about the answer, but would MLK support affirmative action?

August 28, 1963

I Have A Dream
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have a dream that my four 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.

If situations were bad yes, ideally, no.

[Alcon]

Just a question, and I'm sure about the answer, but would MLK support affirmative action?

August 28, 1963

I Have A Dream
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have a dream that my four 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.

That's pretty much impossible to know, but I am sure that most involved in the civil rights struggle would still consider it unfinished today. Which, to some extent, it is.

[TX_1824]

Just a question, and I'm sure about the answer, but would MLK support affirmative action?

August 28, 1963

I Have A Dream
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have a dream that my four 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.

If situations were bad yes, ideally, no.

That is what I thought as well. I also agree with Alcon that it impossible to know. I only wish he were still around today. I honestly believe he was the last great strong leader that African Americans had in this country. I remember hearing his speach on the radio when I was 9 while I was living in the Bronx. Dating myself there. I also remember when he was assassinated.

[J. J.]

On the second point, there were conservatives who opposed the draft even at roughly the same time.  James C. Miller, III, later Reagan's head of OMB, and a (conservative) candidate for US Senate from Virginia in 1994, actually wrote a book c. 1970, calling for the abolition of the draft, including the grounds that minorities were more likely to get drafted.

Ironically, the only serious proposal for a draft recently was from Charles Wrangel, a liberal, African American Democratic Representative from NY.

It's Bush who started this war in Iraq, you can quit trying to blame it on liberals.

I make no reference to Bush or the Iraqi war; you've shown your lack of reading comprehension abilities again, jFRAUD.  I place no blame on liberals for wanting to restart the draft; I place the blame solely on Charlie Rangel, who introducted the bill.  He thought it was a good idea, ironically.  Now, except for a few members, the vast majority of the US House, ond a vast majority of the members of each party, thought that was a bad idea and rejected it.  The military opposed it.  That isn't blaming anybody, except Rangel and the handful that favored it.

Tell me, jFRAUD do you support reestablishing a draft?

[WalterMitty]

i hate to rain on the pc parade......but id rather see a holiday honoring james merideth, or the black kids that risked their lives at little rock central high school, or the black students who led the sit-in at the woolworth, or what about the college kids who died in mississippi while trying to register black voters?

yes mlk was a good speaker and his heart was certainly in the right place.  but other than that, he was a pretty nasty person.  he had some pretty serious character flaws...wife beating, adultery, plagiarizing, etc, etc.

[J. J.]

i hate to rain on the pc parade......but id rather see a holiday honoring james merideth, or the black kids that risked their lives at little rock central high school, or the black students who led the sit-in at the woolworth, or what about the college kids who died in mississippi while trying to register black voters?

yes mlk was a good speaker and his heart was certainly in the right place.  but other than that, he was a pretty nasty person.  he had some pretty serious character flaws...wife beating, adultery, plagiarizing, etc, etc.

I treat the holiday has honoring all those who believed in and fought for, equal civil rights.  I'm a beneficiary.

[AuH2O]

It is generally agreed King would support AA among those that knew him, though of course they are mostly self-serving and could care less about his "legacy."

Hillary Clinton, a couple years ago, said it was ridiculous to think of someone's character as separate from their skin color. It was, of course, an honest statement of her opinion, though I'm sure she would have preferred not to say it.

King recited flowery speeches written by his (Jewish) aides, but they are mostly devoid of content. That is a stark contrast to a truly great speech, say George Wallace's 1963 inaugural address. Wallace's had lots of style, but also serious content- ranging from reflection to specific policy prescriptions.


"...if we amalgamate into the one unit as advocated by the communist philosophers . . then the enrichment of our lives . . . the freedom for our development . . . is gone forever. We become, therefore, a mongrel unit of one under a single all powerful government . . . and we stand for everything . . . and for nothing."

"I will apply the old sound rule of our fathers, that anything worthy of our defense is worthy of one hundred percent of our defense. I have been taught that freedom meant freedom from any threat or fear of government. I was born in that freedom, I was raised in that freedom . . . I intend to live in that freedom . . . and God willing, when I die, I shall leave that freedom to my children . . . as my father left it to me."

"And my prayer is that the Father who reigns above us will bless all the people of this great sovereign State and nation, both white and black."

[opebo]

King recited flowery speeches written by his (Jewish) aides,

I knew you were a racist in terms of hatred of blacks, but was unaware of your antisemitism.  Do you hate them based on race or religion?  Or both?

[DanielX]

Let the brawl begin! AuH20 vs. Opebo! Let's see the spam fly!!!!

[AuH2O]

Why would I bother with opebo? Dumb expatriot pedophiles are not really people I want much to do with.

[opebo]

Why would I bother with opebo? Dumb expatriot pedophiles are not really people I want much to do with.

And yet... I'm in your signature. 

[AuH2O]

Why would I bother with opebo? Dumb expatriot pedophiles are not really people I want much to do with.

And yet... I'm in your signature. 

At the time I put them there merely because they were two of the dumber remarks I had ever seen. I suppose in the interim you have provided more. I imagine I'll change my signature one of these days.

[opebo]

Why would I bother with opebo? Dumb expatriot pedophiles are not really people I want much to do with.

And yet... I'm in your signature. 

At the time I put them there merely because they were two of the dumber remarks I had ever seen. I suppose in the interim you have provided more. I imagine I'll change my signature one of these days.

What's dumb about noting that women and many men have always been desirous of abortion?  It is an obvious fact.  Abortion has always been 'in demand' - a highly desirable and useful service.  If it wasn't, you religious wouldn't even have to bother trying to ban it.

As for cheating in elections, I think many of us hope our side can successfully cheat. 

Or perhaps you meant dumb in the sense of stating something so obvious it needn't be stated?

[AuH2O]

Why would I bother with opebo? Dumb expatriot pedophiles are not really people I want much to do with.

And yet... I'm in your signature. 

At the time I put them there merely because they were two of the dumber remarks I had ever seen. I suppose in the interim you have provided more. I imagine I'll change my signature one of these days.

What's dumb about noting that women and many men have always been desirous of abortion?  It is an obvious fact.  Abortion has always been 'in demand' - a highly desirable and useful service.  If it wasn't, you religious wouldn't even have to bother trying to ban it.

As for cheating in elections, I think many of us hope our side can successfully cheat. 

Or perhaps you meant dumb in the sense of stating something so obvious it needn't be stated?

In the first case, it was perhaps the means by which the thought was expressed.

In the latter, I couldn't pass up the purity of your hypocrisy.

Also, though I realize your head might be at it's 3 fact limit right now, I am not religious and have made that clear many times.