Excerpts from "I Have a Dream" Speech

Tomorrow America will be celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. day, in honor of the slain civil rights leader. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day has been a national holiday in America since 1986. It's celebrated on the third Monday in January. It's celebrated real close to his birthday. He was an iconic figure in the civil rights movement. During the era he was living there was forced segregation in the Deep South. There were all kinds of civil rights marches where civil rights leaders would lead a group of people to march for the equality of blacks. During that time there was blatant discrimination against black people in the Deep South and even other parts of the nation. Blacks had attended separate schools, they had to drink out of separate water fountains, they could be denied admission to a motel due to their race. Even busses were segregated. Rosa Parks was told she had to sit in the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 but refused to do so and she was arrested. She made headlines as a result of her refusal to sit in the back of the bus. After Martin Luther King, Jr. had settled with his family in Montgomery, he was asked to take part in demonstrations against segregation in Alabama and he participated in them.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a black Baptist minister who was known for his famous speech he gave on August 28, 1963 entitled, "I Have a Dream." He gave that speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. King was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929 to Alberta and Martin Luther King, Sr. He grew up in Atlanta. After high school King earned degrees in Morehouse College in Atlanta and Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. He earned a doctorate in Boston University. He met Coretta Scott in Boston and later they married in 1953. They both settled in Montgomery, Alabama and he was appointed the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. I have a few excerpts of his speech I copied down. Here are a few lines of the speech he gave on that momentous day!

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 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 that one day every valley shall be exalted, 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 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 when all God's *children will be able to sing with a 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 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!

* According to the scriptures, a person must be born again before they can be a child of God. Everyone on this earth are all part of God's creation, but you must be saved in order to be a child of God.