MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. I have a dream
本文由倍可亲网友[ Ray1975 ] 于 2008-2-15 06:54 上贴原文网址： http://club.backchina.com/main/viewthread.php?tid=628202
The I Have a Dream Speech
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history asthe greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Martin Luther King, Jr., delivering his 'I Have a Dream' speech fromthe steps of Lincoln Memorial. (photo: National Park Service)
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow westand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentousdecree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaveswho had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as ajoyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundredyears later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by themanacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundredyears later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midstof a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, theNegro is still languishing in the corners of American society and findshimself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today todramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. Whenthe architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of theConstitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing apromissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note wasa promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would beguaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit ofhappiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory noteinsofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoringthis sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check,a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuseto believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believethat there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity ofthis nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that willgive 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 fierceurgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling offor to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time tomake real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from thedark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racialjustice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands ofracial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time tomake 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 notpass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hopethat the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content willhave a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. Therewill be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro isgranted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continueto shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justiceemerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on thewarm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the processof 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 thecup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity anddiscipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate intophysical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heightsof meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancywhich has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrustof all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced bytheir presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny istied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedomis inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
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 ofcivil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfiedas long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of policebrutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy withthe fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of thehighways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as longas 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 theirselfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For WhitesOnly". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannotvote 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 untiljustice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trialsand tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells.Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left youbattered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds ofpolice 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 andghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation canand 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 difficultiesof today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeplyrooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out thetrue 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 offormer slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sitdown together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a statesweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat ofoppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in anation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but bythe 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 ofinterposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, littleblack boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little whiteboys 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 hilland 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 Lordshall 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 astone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform thejangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony ofbrotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to praytogether, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up forfreedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to singwith 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'spride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So letfreedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedomring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from theheightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped 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 itring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and everycity, 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 Negrospiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are freeat last!"
页:
[1]