Address at March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom August 28, 1963
The New York
Times August 28, 1963
200,000 March for Civil Rights in Orderly Washington
Rally; President Sees Gain for Negro
ACTION ASKED NOW
10 Leaders of Protest Urge Laws to End Racial Inequity
More than 200,000 Americans, most of them black but many of them
white, demonstrated here today for a full and speedy program of
civil rights and equal job opportunities.
It was the greatest assembly for a redress of grievances that
this capital has ever seen.
One hundred years and 240 days after Abraham Lincoln enjoined the
emancipated slaves to "abstain from all violence" and
"labor faithfully for reasonable wages," this vast
throng proclaimed in march and song and through the speeches of
their leaders that they were still waiting for the freedom and
the jobs.
Children Clap and Sing
There was no violence to mar the demonstration. In fact, at times
there was an air of hootenanny about it as groups of
schoolchildren clapped hands and swung into the familiar freedom
songs.
But if the crowd was good-natured, the underlying tone was one of
dead seriousness. The emphasis was on "freedom" and
"now." At the same time the leaders emphasized,
paradoxically but realistically, that the struggle was just
beginning.
On Capitol Hill, opinion was divided about the impact of the
demonstration in stimulating Congressional action on civil rights
legislation. But at the White House, President Kennedy declared
that the cause of 20,000,000 Negroes had been advanced by the
march.
The march leaders went from the shadows of the Lincoln Memorial
to the White House to meet with the President for 75 minutes.
Afterward, Mr. Kennedy issued a 400-word statement praising the
marchers for the "deep fervor and the quiet dignity"
that had characterized the demonstration.
Says Nation Can Be Proud
The nation, the President said, "can properly be proud of
the demonstration that has occurred here today."
The main target of the demonstration was Congress, where
committees are now considering the Administration's civil rights
bill.
At the Lincoln Memorial this afternoon, some speakers, knowing
little of the way of Congress, assumed that the passage of a
strengthened civil rights bill had been assured by the moving
events of the day.
But from statements by Congressional leaders, after they had m et
with the march committee this morning, this did not seem certain
at all. These statements came before the demonstration.
Senator Mike Mansfield, of Montang, the Senate Democratic leader,
said he could not say whether the mass protest would speed the
legislation, which faces a filibuster by Southerners.
Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen of Illinois, the Republican
leader, said he thought the demonstration would be neither an
advantage nor a disadvantage to the prospects for the civil
rights bill.
The human tide that swept over the Mall between the shrines of
Washington and Lincoln fell back faster than it came on As soon
as the ceremony broke up this afternoon, the exodus began. With
astounding speed, the last buses and trains cleared the city by
midevening.
At 9 P.M. the city was as calm as the waters of the Reflecting
Pool between the two memorials.
At the Lincoln Memorial early in the afternoon, in the midst of a
songfest before the addresses, Josephine Baker, the singer, who
had flown from her home in Paris, said to the thousands
stretching down both sides of the Reflecting Pool:
"You are on the eve of a complete victory. You can't go
wrong. The world is behind you."
Miss Baker said, as if she saw a dream coming true before her
eyes, that "this is the happiest day of my life."
But of all the 10 leaders of the march on Washington who followed
her, only the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, saw
that dream so hopefully.
The other leaders, except for the three clergymen among the 10,
concentrated on the struggle ahead and spoke in tough, even
harsh, language.
But paradoxically it was King- who had suffered perhaps most of
all- who ignited the crowd with words that might have been
written by the sad, brooding man enshrined within.
As he arose, a great roar welled up from the crowd. When he
started to speak, a hush fell.
Martin Luther King Jr.
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 manacle 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've 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 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 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 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. 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.
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 ever 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. 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. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecutions 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, that 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 down 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.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 to ring, when we let it ring from every tenement 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."
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 on the balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. King had come to Memphis to offer support to striking sanitation workers.