Right Speech,
Right Relations, Right Thoughts and Actions
Goodwill: Leadership
"I m asking you to
believe, not just in my ability to bring about real change...I'm
asking you to believe in yours."
PREPARATION & THE WILL-TO-DO
YES WE
CAN
THE SECRET
VOLUNTEER
Meet Barack
Obama
A
More Perfect Union
(Race
in America and Building a More Perfect Union)
Primary Victory Speech
Plan to Change
Washington
“I am in this race to
tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda
in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate
in this race to take on lobbyists — and won. They have not funded
my campaign, they will not get a job in my White House, and they
will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am
president.”
— Barack Obama,
Speech in Des Moines, IA, November 10, 2007
Martin Luther King, Jr
"Why I Opposed
....War......"
Excerpts of a Sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on
April 30, 1967.
[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED (TEXT
version): "I Have A Dream"
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 exile in his own land. 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 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, yes, black men as well
as white men, would be 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 color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred
obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a
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. 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 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. And 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 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, 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 our children
are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a
sign stating: "For Whites Only."* We cannot 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."¹
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 jail
cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest --
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 South Carolina, 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.
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 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 black girls will be able to
join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and
brothers.
I have a
dream today!
I have a
dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and 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."²
This is our
hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South
with.
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.
And this
will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children
will be able to sing with 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,
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 ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening 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 of
Mississippi.
From
every mountainside, let freedom
ring.
And when
this happens, when we allow 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!³
*Text within asterisks was added on 3/31/06.
Credit Randy Mayeux for bringing the omissions to my
attention.
¹ Amos 5:24 (rendered precisely in The American
Standard Version of the Holy Bible)
² Isaiah 40:4-5 (King James Version of the Holy
Bible). Quotation marks are excluded from part of this moment in
the text because King's rendering of Isaiah 40:4 does not
precisely follow the KJV version from which he quotes (e.g.,
"hill" and "mountain" are reversed in the KJV). King's rendering
of Isaiah 40:5, however, is precisely quoted from the KJV.
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