# Martin Luther King Jr., 'I Have a Dream' (28 August 1963)

- Speaker: Martin Luther King Jr.
- Event: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Lincoln Memorial
- Date: 28 August 1963
- Length: 16 min 21 s (this recording)
- Video URL: Text: https://www.archives.gov/files/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf ; audio: https://archive.org/details/Dr.MartinLutherKingDr.IHaveADreamMarchForJobs82863OURWorldsHiSTORY ; video is widely mirrored on YouTube (NBC News, The King Center)
- Slides: None.
- Transcript source: Whisper (faster-whisper, model medium) on the archive.org audio recording; cross-checked against a first Whisper pass and the widely published text of the speech. Timestamps are from the archive.org audio.
- Corrections: Corrections applied to the machine output, checked against the published text of the speech: 'harder than our destiny' to 'tied up with our destiny' (07:25); 'my friend' to 'my friends' (10:42); 'does not seek' to 'Let us not seek' (06:31). Other small mis-hearings remain; the 1963 recording is noisy.
- Format: `[mm:ss]` is the time the line starts in the source recording. Machine transcript: expect small word errors; quotes used in the analysis were checked against the published text where one exists.

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[00:00] I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration
[00:12] for freedom in the history of our nation.
[00:25] Five score years ago, a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand today signed
[00:37] the Emancipation Proclamation.
[00:42] This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves
[00:51] who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.
[00:57] It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
[01:07] But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free.
[01:18] One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of
[01:26] segregation and the chains of discrimination.
[01:31] One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst
[01:40] of a vast ocean of material prosperity.
[01:44] And years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds
[01:56] himself in exile in his own land.
[01:59] And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
[02:08] In a sense, we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check when the architects
[02:15] of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of
[02:22] Independence.
[02:24] They were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall out.
[02:33] This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be
[02:41] guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
[02:49] It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens
[02:58] of color are concerned.
[03:02] Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad
[03:09] check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.
[03:14] They refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.
[03:31] We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of
[03:39] this nation.
[03:40] And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches
[03:47] of freedom and the security of justice.
[03:50] We will come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now.
[04:08] This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug
[04:18] of gradualism.
[04:19] Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.
[04:32] Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit
[04:39] path of racial justice.
[04:41] Now is the time we send the racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
[04:53] Now is the time for all of God's children.
[05:01] It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment.
[05:08] This sweltering summer of the Negroes' legitimate discontent will not pass until that is an
[05:16] invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
[05:21] 1963 is not an end but a beginning, and those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off
[05:29] steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business
[05:37] as usual.
[05:38] There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his
[05:59] citizenship rights.
[06:01] The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until
[06:07] the bright day of justice emerges.
[06:11] But that is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold
[06:18] which leads into the palace of justice.
[06:22] In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.
[06:31] Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and
[06:38] hatred.
[06:48] We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.
[06:54] We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.
[07:01] Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with
[07:08] soul force.
[07:10] The marvelous new militancy, which has engulfed the Negro community, must not lead us to a
[07:18] distrust of all white people.
[07:20] For many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come
[07:25] to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny.
[07:28] They realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
[07:44] We cannot walk alone.
[07:48] And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
[07:56] We cannot turn back.
[07:58] There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, when will you be satisfied?
[08:07] We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors
[08:13] of police brutality.
[08:16] We can never be satisfied.
[08:19] As long as our body is heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels
[08:26] of the highways and the hotels of the cities, we cannot be satisfied.
[08:36] As long as a Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one, we can
[08:43] never be satisfied.
[08:45] As long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity
[08:50] whites only.
[08:51] We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote, and a Negro in
[09:04] New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
[09:08] No, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like
[09:23] waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
[09:26] I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations.
[09:48] Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells.
[09:53] Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the
[10:00] storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality.
[10:07] You have been the veterans of creative suffering.
[10:12] Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
[10:20] Go back to Mississippi.
[10:22] Go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana,
[10:28] go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation
[10:36] can and will be changed.
[10:39] Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
[10:42] I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today
[11:00] and tomorrow. I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
[11:11] I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of
[11:21] its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. That one
[11:41] One day on the Red Hills of George, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave
[11:49] owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
[11:54] I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the
[12:04] heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into
[12:13] an oasis of freedom and justice.
[12:16] I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will
[12:26] not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
[12:31] I have a dream today, I have a dream that one day in Alabama, with its vicious racists,
[12:52] With its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification,
[12:58] one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join
[13:04] hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
[13:08] I have a dream today.
[13:09] Every hill and mountain shall be exalted.
[13:22] Every hill and mountain shall be made low.
[13:24] The rough places will be made plain.
[13:27] And the crooked places will be made straight.
[13:29] And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
[13:34] This is our hope.
[13:35] This is the faith that I go back to the South with.
[13:40] With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.
[13:47] With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into
[13:54] a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
[13:57] this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to
[14:03] go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one
[14:09] day.
[14:10] This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning,
[14:21] my country tears at thee, sweet land of liberty of thee I sing, land where my fathers
[14:28] dyed land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside.
[14:34] Let freedom ring, and if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
[14:39] And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
[14:45] Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
[14:51] Let freedom ring from the heightening alligators of Pennsylvania.
[14:55] Let freedom ring from the snow-capped rockies of Colorado.
[15:00] Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
[15:04] But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
[15:11] Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
[15:15] Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside.
[15:23] freedom ring, and when this happens, when we allow freedom ring from every village and
[15:34] every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day
[15:42] when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants
[15:48] and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro
[15:53] spiritual, free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty.