"I Have A Dream"
Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. Source: Martin Luther King, Jr: The Peaceful Warrior, Pocket Books, NY 1968
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand 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 captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.
One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles 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 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 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 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 racial 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 racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negroes 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 forever 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 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 and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall 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 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 Negroes basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never 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 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 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 slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four 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 the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. 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 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!" 
Freedom wore an expensive price tag.
Southern blacks who tried to register to vote--and those who supported them--were typically jeered and harassed, beaten or killed. In 1963, the NAACP's Medgar Evers was gunned down in front of his wife and children in Jackson, Mississippi. Reverend George Lee of Belzoni, Mississippi, was murdered when he refused to remove his name from a list of registered voters, and farmer Herbert Lee of Liberty, Mississippi, was killed for having attended voter education classes. Three "Freedom Summer" field-workers--Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman--were shot down for their part in helping Mississippi blacks register and organize. Michael Schwerner, a social worker from Manhattan's Lower East Side, James Chaney, a local plasterer's apprentice, and Andrew Goodman, a Queens College anthropology student, disappeared in June 1964. Their bodies were discovered several months later in an earthen dam outside Philadelphia, Mississippi. Schwerner and Goodman had been shot once; Chaney, the lone African American, had been savagely beaten and shot three times.
When violence failed to stop voter registration efforts, whites used economic pressure. In Mississippi's LeFlore and Sunflower Counties--two of the poorest counties in the nation--state authorities cut off federal food relief, resulting in a near-famine in the region. Many black registrants throughout the South were also fired from their jobs or refused credit at local banks and stores. In one town, a black grocer was forced out of business when local whites stopped his store delivery trucks on the highway outside town and made them turn around.
Like voter registrants, freedom riders paid a heavy price for racial justice. When the interracial groups of riders stepped off Greyhound or Trailways buses in segregated terminals, local police were usually absent. Angry mobs were waiting, however, armed with baseball bats, lead pipes, and bicycle chains.
Martin Luther King, Jr., in the Birmingham jail
In Anniston, Alabama, one bus was firebombed, forcing its passengers to flee for their lives. In Birmingham, where an FBI informant reported that Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor had encouraged the Ku Klux Klan to attack an incoming group of freedom riders "until it looked like a bulldog had got a hold of them," the riders were severely beaten. In eerily-quiet Montgomery, a mob charged another bus load of riders, knocking John Lewis unconscious with a crate and smashing Life photographer Don Urbrock in the face with his own camera. A dozen men surrounded Jim Zwerg, a white student from Fisk University, and beat him in the face with a suitcase, knocking out his teeth. The freedom riders did not fare much better in jail. There, they were crammed into tiny, filthy cells and sporadically beaten. In Jackson, Mississippi, some male prisoners were forced to do hard labor in 100-degree heat. Others were transferred to Parchman Penitentiary, where their food was deliberately oversalted and their mattresses were removed. Sometimes the men were suspended by "wrist breakers" from the walls. Typically, the windows of their cells were shut tight on hot days, making it hard for them to breathe.
Out of jail, the freedom riders joined mass demonstrations where the violent response of local police shocked the world. In Birmingham, police loosed attack dogs into a peaceful crowd of demonstrators, and the German shepherds bit three teenagers. In Birmingham and Orangeburg, South Carolina, firemen blasted protestors with hoses set at a pressure to remove bark from trees and mortar from brick.
Viola Liuzzo MemorialNational Park Service PhotographOn "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama, police and troopers on horseback charged into a group of marchers, beating them and firing tear gas. Several weeks later the marchers trekked the 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery without incident, but afterwards four Klansmen murdered Detroit homemaker Viola Liuzzo as she drove marchers back to Selma. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his life for the movement, struck down by an assassin's bullet in Memphis, Tennessee.
When white supremacists could not halt the civil rights movement, they tried to demoralize its supporters. They bombed churches and other meeting places. They set high bail and paced trials slowly, forcing civil rights organizations to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. At a Nashville lunch counter sit-in, the store manager locked the door and turned on the insect fumigator. In St. Augustine, Florida, city officials who had promised to meet with black demonstrators at City Hall offered them an empty table and a tape recorder instead. In Selma, Sheriff Jim Clark and his deputies forced 165 students into a three-mile run, poking them with cattle prods as they ran. Random violence accompanied calculated acts. The Klan bombing of Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church killed four black girls. On the campus of the University of Mississippi, a stray bullet struck a local jukebox-repairman in a riot that killed one reporter and wounded more than 150 federal marshals. In Marion, Alabama, 26-year-old Jimmy Lee Jackson was gunned down while trying to protect his mother and grandfather from State Police. Not far away in Selma, a white Boston minister who had lost his way was clubbed to death by white vigilantes.
The more violent southern whites became, the more their actions were publicized and denounced across the nation. Increasing violence in the South's streets, jails, and public places failed to break the spirits of the freedom fighters. Indeed, it emboldened them.
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Growing into God's Favor
Date: Thursday, December 15, 2005
By: Bishop T. D. Jakes, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com
Have you ever gone through a situation so bad that you thought no one in the world could possibly be in a more terrible fix than you? The experience was beyond comprehension and it seemed impossible that you ever get out of it but somehow you did? I know people who lost their jobs, and as a result, lost their homes, cars or went bankrupt. Now they're in a better job, making better money and experiencing success in other areas of life only to be challenged by scandalous criticism from so-called "friends" and even family.
Isn't it amazing how a person can go through extreme difficulties in life, but as soon as God delivers them out of that situation into His blessing, the people around them begin questioning their progress? They begin to prejudge the miracle God has performed by saying things like: "I don't know how she got that job; she was just a secretary before." "How can he live in a house like that; he must be selling drugs." "What are they grinning about; last year they were talking about getting a divorce." Can you relate to what I'm saying?
You may be surprised, but your best moment often provokes envy and jealousy in others. God's favor on your life becomes the source of their frustration. In fact, many believe your favor was at their expense. Unfortunately they never muster up the courage to celebrate the big break you've been waiting for all your life.
I am reminded of the story in the Bible where a man had been blind since birth. When Jesus and His disciples came up on the man, the disciples questioned Jesus saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him" (John 9:2-3).
After Jesus healed the man, you would think that the people who knew him would have celebrated and been happy for him. Instead great controversy broke out and they began to question his healing. They questioned his parents to the point that they doubted that the man was who he said he was. Worse than that, they questioned the work of Jesus.
You may be wondering why things are as they are in your life right now, or why you had to go through what you went through to arrive at the place you are today. Quite honestly, some things have no explanation. And unfortunately bad things do happen to good people. But God has purpose in everything; and only He can bring you out. God wants to reveal His work in your life.
Whatever you're waiting for right now, consciously or subconsciously, hold on. Your help is on the way! As you wait, begin preparing yourself for the backlash of God's favor. Determine that you will walk in your miracle despite what anyone says or thinks. People may prejudge you, question God's blessing on your life and hate you for being chosen. Don't worry. Grow into His favor and enjoy the benefits of your miracle.
This article was taken from the series entitled The Favor Factor.
courtesy of: www.blackamericaweb.com
more sources visit: www.tdjakes.org
Submitted by Shelle'
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Greetings to all
Thanks for visiting "Empowering Spirits - Freeing Your Mind" weblog
This week we honor and celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King. It is important to point out the fact that Dr. King raised as a Preacher's son attended college but was an average man, a Minister of the Gospel, a husband, and a father. He was a man with many possibilities and huge responsibilites. Dr. King shared his vision with indivduals who were also committed to "the dream" even long after he died. Having a vision isn't enough if we compromise ourselves. So this week we pose a question: Do you have a vision?
Unfortunately today many of us have lost our vision or lack the ability to stay focused on our vision and we often dare to dream big dreams. Struggling to get by or as most say living in lack becomes normal. Their are some who only know poverty as a way of life; for some of us, living paycheck to paycheck is a reality. Our enemy is Poor Planning we dwell on what we don't have and feel defeated instead of working from where we are to come up with a reasonable plan of action. The most successful amoung us likely have a vision and set up a plan of action. My point is don't be intimidated by your vision because if GOD gave it to you then you are charged with making it a reality.
Don't let others who may not agree with YOUR vision deter you in any way. Seek out others who share your vision individuals traveling toward the same goals or find a mentor who has already achieved some goals and want to see you succeed. No matter how old you are, it's never too late!
What if Dr. King gave up after he faced prision, being attacked watching people he cared about being brutalized and killed. Although many people tried to discourage Dr. King to stop participating in the movement fearing what ultimately happened to him, the F.B.I., other leaders often criticized his methodolgy. He was steadfast, today we honor him, today his vision has been adopted by many nations. The world applauds his efforts and this average man from Atlanta GA changed the face of politics for an entire nation by inspiration of others and staying focused on this vision for equality.
Dream big dreams search for the courage, strength and resources to make them come true. This is the purpose of this web blog to encourage and enlighten each of us to keep in pursuit of those dreams.
"For without a vision the people perish"
Although we are often faced with many obstacles in life we cannot allow that cloud our judgement but believe that Faith is the driving force of our ideas. As we began 2006 as a nation we are still faced with much trouble and strife with the threat of terrorism raging. Some of us reside in communities are terrorized daily. Some of us in our minds live in a constant state of terror. Fight back hard no longer be victims we have to find the strength and resources to attain a better life, a better community too attain our dreams. Being concious of the way we conduct ourselves publicly and privately considering all of the possibilities. Stand for something or fall for anything, you have that responsibility. No, you might not get a Nobel Peace Prize, or a federal holiday, but you do have the ability to touch another human beings life enough to make a difference. Stay strong and hold on, don't fret if your vision hasn't become apparent yet. Never give in and don't give up.
Remember for every new level achieved theres a new devil waiting to challenge you, be prepared to fight the good fight. You are a winner no matter if you get recognition for your achievements or none at all. Nothing in life comes easy, forget the myth because life isn't fair. Life is definitely what you make it - when life hands you a lemon make lemonade. Perception is everything.
Do you have a vision?
Dr. King did'nt live to see his dream evolve 100 percent, but he saw it begin after his I have a dream speech. Keep this in mind you may or might not get to live out your dreams completely but at least you'll have embarked upon something to leave as a mark or planted the seed which could pave the way for the future visionary's to follow.
Appreciate the journey of wherever your vision's may lead you.
Peace & Blessing
Shelle'
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