We have made great strides in the civil rights movement. Today, the lives of 42 million Blacks, 52 million Hispanics, 4 million Native American Indians, and 15 million Asians are far better than they were fifty years ago when Martin Luther King gave his speech, “I Have A Dream “. There is still work to be done. We are not finished. And almost no work has been done on behalf of 23 million Americans shackled by the chains of discrimination and despair. These Americans suffer from an illness which knows no racial boundaries and kills with abandon. Addiction. We say to these Americans they are choosing to die and offer most of them no assistance. We condemn them. They are our modern day lepers. I have a dream. I have a dream that if Martin Luther King were to speak today, he might say this:
Seven score and ten years ago, a great American, Abraham Lincoln, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to Americans who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
But one hundred and fifty years later, we must face the tragic fact that all Americans are still not free. One hundred and fifty years later, the lives of twenty three million Americans are still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred and fifty years later, twenty three million Americans live on a lonely island of addiction in the midst of a vast ocean of wellness they cannot reach. One hundred and fifty years later, twenty three million Americans are still languishing in the corners of American society and find themselves exiles in their own land.So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling 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 and women would be guaranteed the inalienable 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 sickened by the disease of addiction are concerned, Black Americans and White Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans, Jews and Gentiles, Muslims and Hindus, Buddhists and Agnostics, Protestants and Catholics. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given those suffering from addiction a bad 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 rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?"
We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, sickened by this chronic and often fatal disease, cannot gain access to recovery.
We can never be satisfied as long as our basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one, a prison cell, or a grave.
We can never be satisfied as long as we are viewed as choosing to be addicts rather than Americans suffering from a deadly illness.
We can never be satisfied as long as we are seen as disposable or morally deficient because we suffer from a disease.
We can never be satisfied as long as we are told to remain in the shadows even when we recover.
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 cells. Some of you have come from areas where your 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 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, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, 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 and women are created equal."
I have a dream that one day our nation will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where our children will not be judged by their disabilities but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day our brothers and sisters sickened by this disease will have access to recovery.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day recovering addicts will emerge from the shadows.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day recovering addicts will sit down openly with their neighbors in brotherhood.
I have a dream today.
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 with which I return to the South. 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 of 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 if America is to be a great nation this must become true. 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 snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks 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 every molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
When we let 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 Americans and White Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans, Jews and Gentiles, Muslims and Hindus, Buddhists and Agnostics, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"