Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
1929 -- 1968
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, civil rights leader Martin Luther King was one of
the world's best-known advocates of nonviolent social change. Educated in
Pennsylvania at Crozer Theological Seminary and Boston University, King became
a Baptist Church pastor in 1954 and recieved a Ph.D in theology in 1955.
King was elected president of the newly-formed Montgomery Improvement
Association in 1955 (formed during the black residents' boycott of the city's
buses -- a boycott launched by civil rights activist Rosa Parks refusal to
obey the city's policy mandating segregation on buses.) Despite being slapped
with criminal charges and his house being bombed during this time of civil
unrest, King's actions helped result in the 1956 desegregation of Montgomery's
buses when the Supreme Court declared Alabama's segregation laws
unconstitutional.
In 1957, King helped to found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC). As president, he emphasized the goal of black voting rights when he
spoke at the Lincoln Memorial during the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom.
At the end of 1959, he resigned from Dexter and returned to Atlanta where the
SCLC headquarters were located. King did not mobilize mass protest activity
during SCLC’s first few years but in 1960 southern black college students
launched a wave of sit-in protests. And, although King sympathized with their
movement and spoke at the founding meeting of the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee SNCC in April 1960, he soon became the target of
criticisms from SNCC activists.
King and his staff initiated a major campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, where
white police officials were notorious for their anti-black attitudes. In 1963,
clashes between unarmed black demonstrators and police with attack dogs and
fire hoses generated newspaper headlines throughout the world. Subsequent mass
demonstrations in many communities culminated in a march on August 28, 1963,
attracting more than 250,000 protesters to Washington, D.C. Addressing the
marchers from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, King delivered his famous I
Have A Dream speech.
I HAVE A DREAM
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 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 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!"
King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and was assassinated April 4,
1968. In 1986, his birthday -- January 15 -- was made a federal holiday in the
United States.
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