I am happy to come together with you today in what will go down as the greatest gathering for freedom in our homeland‘s tale. Five score years ago, a great American in whose betokening shadow we stand today, underwrote his name on the deed giving freedom to the black thrall. This timely boding came as a beacon light to thralls in their millions hoping that, their days spent withering in the fire of searing wretchednes had come to an end. It came as a listful dawn to end the long night of thralldom. But one hundred years on, the life of the black American is still not free. One hundred years on, freedom in the blackman’s life is still sadly crippled by shackles of sunderhood and the hidden fetters of unfairness.
One hundred years after, the black American lives on a lonely island of needyness in a sea of wealth. One hundred years after, the black American is still ailing in the nooks, and on the edges of American fellowship, not wanted in his own land. So we have come here today to spotlight a shameful tale.
In a way we have come to our Homeland’s Headtown to call in a draught. When the builders of our great folkdom wrote the haughty words of the Books-of-Rights and the Folkcast of Lonestance, there were underwriting a behight deed to which every American was to fall erewardly.
The deed was a behight that all folk, yes, black and white would be steadfast in the yieldless rights of life, freedom and the seeking of eadiness.
It is fair to see today that Americans have been found wanting in fairness, doing little on this behight deed in their dealings with black folks. Instead of worthiness in holding firm to this hallowed call to right a wrong , America has given its black folk a bad draught. A draught that has come back with the words ” not enough fee.”
But we unwilling to believe that the horden of fairness is without fee. We are unwilling to believe that there is not enough fee in the great ettleful hordern of this land. So we have come to take in fee this draught, a draught that will give upon asking freedom's boons and hele's fairness.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to bring to America’s mind again the pressing need of Now. This is not the time to take a cooling-off sop or the calming healthdrug of let's go forward little-by-little.
Now is the time to make true the behight of folkmight.
Now it is the time to rise from aparthood's dark and lonely hollow into the sunlit path of fair-go for the black folk.
Now it is time to lift our homeland out of this folkstrandish quicksand onto the rock of brotherly steadfastness.
Now is the time to give a fair deal to all God’s children.
It would be dooming for the homeland to overlook nowness’ thronging need and underguess the black folks’ steadfastness. The sweltering summer of the black folk’s lawful gladlessness will not go-away until there freedom with a fair deal. Nineteen sixty- three is not the end but a beginning. Those who hoped that the black American needs to let-off steam and will now be fulfilled will have a stark mindjarring awakening if the homeland goes back to its old, unfair ways.
There will be neither be a frithful hush over America until the black American is given his rights. The uprising, like a windwhirl, will shake our folkdom’s stadles until the sun shines fairly and evenness on all
We can never be fulfilled as long as our bodies, heavy with the tiredness of wayfaring cannot get lodging in inns by the highways and the inns in the great towns.
We cannot be fulfilled as long as the black folks leave small wretchsteads to end-up only in larger, dretchy townships.
We can never be fulfilled as long as our bairns have taken from them their self-worth and have their selfhood reaved from them by boards that read “ for whites only. ”
We cannot be fulfilled as long as a black folk in Mississippi cannot folk-aye and black folk in New York believe that they have nothing for which to folk-aye.
No, no we are not fulfilled and we will not be fulfilled until fairness rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here ordeal-wearied and sorely smited. Others have have come from steads where seeking your freedom has left you pounded by hounding storms, and harried by the harshness of biting winds wrought upon you by those given to uphold your rights and freedoms.
You have been old-hands at finding understanding and enlightment in bearing the burdens of dreighdom. Go on with your work with the belief that unearned dreedom will make you free.
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 wretchsteads and small black townlets throughout our now great towns, knowing that somehow this wrong can and will be made right.
Let us not wallow in the yesterday’s waned away hopes. I say to you, my friends, we have the burdens in our heart and toils in our the mind of today and tomorrow.
I have a foresight. It is a foresight deeply and longly rooted in the American mind.
I have a foresight that one day this folkdom will rise up and live out the true meaning of its belief that all men are made even.
I have a foresight that one day in the red hills of Georgia that one-time thrall’s sons and one-time thrall-owners’ sons will sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a mindsight that one day even in the shire of Mississippi, a shire sweltering with the heat of downtrodden-ness will be shaped otherly into an lush well, full of freedom and fairness.
I have a foresight that my four little children will one day live in a land where they will be deemed not by their skin’s hue or blee, but by their deeds.
I have a foresight today.
I have a foresight that one day down in Alabama, with it’s evil-willed hindering haters, it’s leader having his lips dripping words, bitter, hateful and worth quelling; that one day right down in Alabama little black children, carls and frows, can link hands with little white carls and frows, as sisters and brothers.
I have a foresight today.
I have a foresight that every dale shall be swallowed-up, every hill shall be lifted up and every fell shall be made low, the rough places will be made smooth, and the crooked places will be made straight and the greatness of the Lord shall be made for all to see and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the belief that I will go back to the South filled with. With this belief we will have the strength to hew out from hopelessness ’ fell, a stone of hope.
With this hope we can shape anew our clattering heart, sadly beating for our land asundered, into a gladdening glee of brotherhood.
With this belief we can work together, make our beseeching to God together, to struggle together, to be locked-up together, to climb up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all God’s bairns will sing with new understanding “My land ‘tis of thee, sweet land of freedom, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the first white settler's pride, from every fellside, let freedom ring!”
And if America is to be great land, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the hilltops in New Hampshire. Let freedom from New York‘s mighty fells.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies in Pennsylvania
Let freedom ring from the snow-topped Rockies in Colorado.
Let freedom ring from California’s wendsome slopes.
But not only that, let freedom ring from Georgia’s Stony Fell.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill throughout Mississippi and along every fellside.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every boarding-house and every hamlet, from every shire and every big town, we can speed up the day when all God’s bairns, black and white, Jew and Non-Jew, Romish churcher and Non-Romish churcher, can link hands and sing in the words of the old song of this land's enthralled black folk , Free at last, free at last. “Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.’’