Extracts from Martin Luther King's speech delivered 28 August , at the Lincoln Memorial, D.C.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the . This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of who had been seared in the flames of withering . It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not . One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of and the chains of . One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of 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 in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
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And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the 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 ."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of .
I have a dream that one day even the state of , a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and .
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 .
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in , with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
