我有一个梦想I Have a Dream全文Martin Luther King, Jr.

I Have a Dream by 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

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. And 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. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who

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 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,