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Black History Everyday
By: Taylor Brooks |
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Martin Luther King,
Jr., a Baptist minister, was a
driving force in the push for racial
equality in the 1950's and the
1960's. In 1963, King and his staff
focused on Birmingham, Alabama. They
marched and protested non-violently,
raising the ire of local officials
who turned water cannon and police
dogs on the marchers, whose ranks
included teenagers and children. The
bad publicity and break-down of
business forced the white leaders of
Birmingham to concede to some
anti-segregation demands.
Thrust into the
national spotlight in Birmingham,
where he was arrested and jailed,
King helped organize a massive march
on Washington, DC, on August 28,
1963. His partners in the March on
Washington for Jobs and Freedom
included other religious leaders,
labor leaders, and black organizers.
The assembled masses marched down
the Washington Mall from the
Washington Monument to the Lincoln
Memorial, heard songs from Bob Dylan
and Joan Baez, and heard speeches by
actor Charlton Heston, NAACP
president Roy Wilkins, and future
U.S. Representative from Georgia
John Lewis.
King's appearance was the last of
the event; the closing speech was
carried live on major television
networks. On the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial, King evoked the
name of Lincoln in his "I Have a
Dream" speech, which is credited
with mobilizing supporters of
desegregation and prompted the 1964
Civil Rights Act. The next year,
King was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize.
The following is the
exact text of the spoken speech,
transcribed from recordings. I am
happy to
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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 languishing
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
have 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.
So we have 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 quick sands of racial
injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
Now is the time to make justice a
reality for all of God's children. |
