What does King tell the crowds to take with them back to their homes?

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. addresses the oversupply at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., where he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech on Aug. 28, 1963, as part of the March on Washington. AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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AFP via Getty Images

Civil rights leader Martin Luther Rex Jr. addresses the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., where he gave his "I Accept a Dream" voice communication on Aug. 28, 1963, as part of the March on Washington.

AFP via Getty Images

Monday marks the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. Below is a transcript of his celebrated "I Have a Dream" oral communication, delivered on Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. NPR's Talk of the Nation aired the speech in 2010 — listen to that broadcast at the audio link above.

Martin Luther King Jr. and other ceremonious rights leaders gather before a rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963, in Washington. National Archives/Hulton Archive via Getty Images hibernate caption

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National Archives/Hulton Annal via Getty Images

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: V score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came every bit a great beacon light of promise to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came every bit a joyous daybreak to terminate the long night of their captivity.

But 100 years later, the Negro still is not costless. Ane hundred years later, the life of the Negro is withal sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later on, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. Ane hundred years afterward the Negro is still languished in the corners of American order and finds himself in exile in his own country. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a cheque.

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Proclamation of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yep, Black men as well as white men — would exist 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 colour are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a bank check which has come dorsum marked insufficient funds.

Just we turn down 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. And then nosotros've come to cash this check, a check that will requite u.s. upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to his 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.

Civil rights protesters march from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. Kurt Severin/3 Lions/Hulton Annal/Getty Images hide caption

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Kurt Severin/Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Now is the time to make existent 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. At present is the fourth dimension to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. At present 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'south legitimate discontent volition not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of liberty and equality. 1963 is not an cease, but a beginning. Those who promise that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will at present exist content will accept a rude enkindling if the nation returns to business equally usual.

There will be neither residuum nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to milk shake the foundations of our nation until the brilliant mean solar day of justice emerges.

Only there is something that I must say to my people who stand up on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, nosotros must not exist 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 acquit our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not permit our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Once more and once again, nosotros must ascension to the majestic heights of coming together 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, accept come up to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny.

And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably jump to our freedom. Nosotros cannot walk alone. And equally we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.

At that place are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, when volition you exist satisfied? We tin can never exist satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. Nosotros tin never be satisfied equally long every bit 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 equally long as the Negro'south basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We tin 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 equally 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 nosotros will not be satisfied until justice rolls down similar waters, and righteousness similar a mighty stream.

I am non unmindful that some of you have come here out of bully trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you accept come from areas where your quest for freedom left yous battered by the storms of persecution and staggered past the winds of police brutality. You lot accept 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, become back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go dorsum to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation tin can and will be changed.

Permit us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you lot today, my friends.

So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I yet have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I take a dream that one day this nation will rise up and alive out the truthful pregnant of its creed: Nosotros hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

People clap and sing forth to a freedom song between speeches at the March on Washington for Jobs and Liberty in 1963. Express Newspapers via Getty Images hide explanation

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Express Newspapers via Getty Images

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of quondam slave owners will be able to sit down down together at the tabular array of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one twenty-four hour period even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the rut of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four piffling children will one twenty-four hour period live in a nation where they will not be judged past the color of their pare simply by the content of their graphic symbol. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day downward in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, 1 24-hour interval right downwardly in Alabama little Black boys and Black girls volition be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls equally sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one solar day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be fabricated depression, the crude places volition be made plain, and the kleptomaniacal places will be fabricated directly, and the glory of the Lord shall exist revealed, and all flesh shall encounter it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go dorsum to the South with. With this faith, nosotros volition be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this religion 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 piece of work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to get to jail together, to stand upward for freedom together, knowing that we volition be gratuitous one day.

This will be the twenty-four hours when all of God's children will exist able to sing with new meaning: My land, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, state of the pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom band from the mighty mountains of New York. Allow liberty band from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let liberty ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Allow liberty band from the curvaceous slopes of California. Merely not simply that, let freedom ring from Rock Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Allow freedom band from every colina and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, permit liberty band.

And when this happens, and when nosotros allow freedom band, when nosotros let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we volition be able to speed upwards that 24-hour interval when all of God'south children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will exist 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 concluding.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety

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