Martin Luther King's Speech
August 28, 1963
1963年8月28日
演説・音声ファイル(MP3) |
Iam 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
So
we have 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 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."
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, so even though we face the difficulties of today
and tomorrow,
I
still have a dream.
t 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."
This is our hope.
This is the faith that I will 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.
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, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!"
And
if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
So let freedom
ring from the prodigious hilltops 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 StoneMountain
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 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!"
*
キング牧師の演説 「私には夢がある。」 1963年8月28日