♪We shall overcome. We shall overcome.♪ 1963年8月28日，华盛顿大游行 我有一个梦想
♪ We shall overcome, someday. ♫
♫ Oh deep in my heart Lord, I do believe ♪
♪ We shall overcome, someday. ♪
At this time I have the honor to present to you
the moral leader of our nation
I have the pleasure to present to you:
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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.
So we've come here today
to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capitol
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.
So we've 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.
1963 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 plain 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 hights
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 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 Whites Only".
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote,
and the 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 water
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 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 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
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
sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners
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 oppresion
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,
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 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
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.
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 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 in 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!"