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Ausländische Feier- und Brauchtumstage > Feiertage:
USA > Martin Luther King Day
> "I have a dream"-Rede |
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Text von Kings berühmter
"I have a dream"-Rede vom 28. August 1963 anlässlich des friedlichen
Demonstrationszuges für Arbeitsplätze und Freiheit zum Lincoln Memorial in Washington
D.C. |
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 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 is still 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 languishing
in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land So we have
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 great 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 to 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 that 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
security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now.
This is not 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 promise 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 to all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to
underestimate the determination of it's colored citizens. 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 the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a
larger one.
We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and
robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for white only."
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 your 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 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 modern 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 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; that 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 every
mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains 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 climb 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 new meaning
"My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my
father's 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 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 every hill and molehill of Mississippi and every mountainside.
And when this happens, when we let freedom 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 spiritual,
"Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last." |
+ Martin Luther King`s "I have a dream"-Rede +
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