It was 40 years ago that Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his momentous and legendary speech. The human heart and soul long for freedom of thought, individuality and the freedom to live's one's life as one sees fit.

Forty years ago Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech, one of the most momentous speeches of the 20th Century. Why did this speech have the power to impact history? No other speech given that day or since has lived longer or had more influence on the minds and hearts of the entire world. Three factors make this stunning speech alive and relevant from the day it was first heard to today.

The first was Dr. King himself. If we compare his words to the other words spoken that day, we find something extraordinary. Nowhere in his speech is there bitterness, hatred, intolerance, or extremism. Instead, we find wisdom, love, vision and truth.

How could this man who experienced the police dogs of the old South, the jail cell of Birmingham, the brutality of Chicago, the unspeakable crimes to which he was witness, rise to such enlightenment? He learned his lessons from Gandhi and Christ, and so, he could actually love his enemies, even while abhorring what they did. And because of this, he could bring friend and foe into a higher plane of reflection, where the noise of the then-present rage on both sides quieted down. This reflection was so quiet that one had to see the truth that existed exactly as it was; one had to measure his or her deepest values against that reality; one had to answer to what was highest in the human cause.

There are many very good biographies on Dr. King's life. One of my favorites is Let The Trumpet Sound by Stephen B. Oates. When we study Dr. King's life, we find that he wasn't born with the transcendental wisdom that was one of his hallmarks. His personal journey was to rise from his own prejudice and reaction against bigotry to a deeper understanding of the human condition that allows such transgressions to exist. He learned about prejudice from his own prejudice. He learned about transcendence from his own experience of transcendence. He not only spoke about freedom and justice, he embodied it. Through his own self-mastery over his circumstances, he became uniquely qualified to lead, not only a movement, but the world.

The second factor was the speech's content. Freedom is its own cause. Today, freedom is as much a world issue as it was in 1963. In some ways, ironically, more so.

Freedom is a hard notion to grasp and a harder reality to achieve. The human heart and soul long for freedom - freedom of thought and individuality, freedom to live one's life as one sees fit. As an aspiration, freedom is opposed by many forms of tyranny: sometimes of the state, sometimes one's society, sometimes one's family, sometimes one's own inner chains. In the world today, the battle between extreme worldviews that would demand of people their strict devotion to dogma is the first major challenge and battleground of the new century. This is yet another version of the historical struggle in which doctrines of conformity are in mortal conflict with a profound desire for freedom.

When King talked about freedom, he wasn't speaking in the abstract. He had reached a level of personal freedom in which even the prospect of his own death was not a deterrent to what he saw as right action for the higher cause of freedom and justice. King embodied a type of freedom that, as Robert Frost described in his poem It's Hard Not to Be King When It's In You And In The Situation, is "the type of freedom that is not granted by kings."

The third factor that made King's speech more than just a speech was the form. He began by describing the original governing principle of the United States: freedom. This was the promise that we had made to each other. This was the seed from which the great nation had been brought into being. Then he described the current condition that existed: injustice, racism, brutality, and oppression. He then described his dream, his vision for America and for the world. It is a vision in which people can join together freely and build something grand, something better than we have seen so far in history, something that is worthy of that which is highest in our humanity. His speech was the essence of the creative process and structural tension: to envision the future and hold that dream while being truthful about reality.

His speech has entered into the international consciousness. His dream was one that all children understand when they ask the simplistic question, "Why can't people get along?" No matter what condition the world finds itself in, be it the dark periods or the ages of enlightenment, we have the entrenched hope of peace, freedom, justice, and a world that can join together to build its civilization, to be able to join hands and sing, "Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we are free at last."

© Robert Fritz, 2003

What follows is the speech delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I Have A Dream"
by 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!"

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