Excerpts from the speech delivered by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Aug. 28, 1963.
"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."
"In a sense, we've 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 promisory note to which every American was to fall heir."
"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."
"There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, 'When will you be satisfied?' We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors
of police brutality."
"But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the worn 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."
"Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force."
"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 the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners 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 oppression, 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
there in Alabama, little black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and little white girls as sisters and brothers.
"I have a dream today!"
"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 heights of the Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
"Let freedom ring from the snow-capped 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.' "