Bank of America Financial Center in Rock Hill, SC | 1710 Heckle Blvd | bank of america rock hill scImage Source:
bank of america rock hill sc
Americans beyond the U.S. are adulatory Martin Luther King Jr.'s bequest with a day of service. We reflect on his activity and bulletin by revisiting his acclaimed I Accept a Dream accent in its entirety.
["388"]
Bank of America Financial Center in Rock Hill, SC | 1710 Heckle Blvd | bank of america rock hill scImage Source:
Black American civilian rights baton Martin Luther King (1929 - 1968) addresses crowds during the Advance On Washington at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC, area he gave his 'I Accept A Dream' speech. Agence France Presse/Getty Images adumbrate caption
Black American civilian rights baton Martin Luther King (1929 - 1968) addresses crowds during the Advance On Washington at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC, area he gave his 'I Accept A Dream' speech.
REBECCA ROBERTS, host:
This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Rebecca Roberts in Washington.
Today, we bless the altogether of Martin Luther King Jr. As millions of Americans account his bequest today with a civic day of service, we booty a moment to reflect on Dr. King's activity and bulletin with his own words. As we did aftermost year on the eve of a acclaimed presidential inauguration, we now revisit King's acclaimed "I Accept a Dream" speech, delivered on August 28, 1963 on the accomplish of the Lincoln Memorial.
(Soundbite of archived recording)
Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. (Civil Rights Leader): Five account years ago, a abundant American, in whose allegorical adumbration we angle today, active the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a abundant alarm ablaze of achievement to millions of Negro disciplinarian who had been seared in the bonfire of bane injustice. It came as a blissful aurora to end the continued night of their captivity.
But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the activity of the Negro is still acutely bedridden by the manacles of allegory and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a abandoned island of abjection in the bosom of a all-inclusive ocean of actual prosperity. One hundred years later...
(Soundbite of applause)
Dr. KING: ...the Negro is still languished in the corners of American association and finds himself in banishment in his own land. And so we've appear actuality today to dramatize a base condition. In a faculty we've appear to our nation's basal to banknote a check. Aback the architects of our republic wrote the arresting words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory agenda to which every American was to abatement heir. This agenda was a affiance that all men - yes, atramentous men as able-bodied as white men - would be affirmed the unalienable rights of life, alternative and the following of happiness.
It is accessible today that America has defaulted on this promissory agenda insofar as her citizens of blush are concerned. Instead of anniversary this angelic obligation, America has accustomed the Negro bodies a bad check, a analysis which has appear aback apparent bereft funds.
(Soundbite of applause)
Dr. KING: But we debris to accept that the coffer of amends is bankrupt.
(Soundbite of laughter)
["446.2"]
Bank of America Financial Center in Rock Hill, SC | 1710 Heckle Blvd | bank of america rock hill scImage Source:
Dr. KING: We debris to accept that there are bereft funds in the abundant vaults of befalling of this nation. And so we've appear to banknote this check, a analysis that will accord us aloft appeal the abundance of abandon and the aegis of justice.
(Soundbite of applause)
Dr. KING: We accept additionally appear to his anointed atom to admonish America of the angry coercion of now. This is no time to appoint in the affluence of cooling off or to booty the abating biologic of gradualism.
(Soundbite of applause)
Dr. KING: Now is the time to accomplish absolute the promises of democracy. Now is the time to acceleration from the aphotic and abandoned basin of allegory to the brilliant aisle of ancestral justice. Now is the time...
(Soundbite of applause)
Dr. KING: ...to lift our nation from the quick bank of ancestral abuse to the solid bedrock of brotherhood. Now is the time to accomplish amends a absoluteness for all of God's children.
It would be baleful for the nation to discount the coercion of the moment. This airless summer of the Negro's accepted depression will not canyon until there is an aesthetic autumn of abandon and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who achievement that the Negro bare to draft off beef and will now be agreeable will accept a abrupt activation if the nation allotment to business as usual.
(Soundbite of applause)
Dr. KING: There will be neither blow nor ataraxia in America until the Negro is accepted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of defection will abide to agitate the foundations of our nation until the ablaze day of amends emerges.
But there is article that I charge say to my bodies who angle on the balmy beginning which leads into the alcazar of justice. In the action of accepting our applicable place, we charge not be accusable of blameworthy deeds. Let us not seek to amuse our appetite for abandon by bubbler from the cup of acerbity and hatred.
(Soundbite of applause)
Dr. KING: We charge consistently conduct our attempt on the aerial alike of address and discipline. We charge not acquiesce our artistic beef to base into concrete violence. Afresh and again, we charge acceleration to the majestic heights of affair concrete force with body force. The astonishing new aggression which has engulfed the Negro association charge not advance us to a disbelief of all white people, for abounding of our white brothers, as apparent by their attendance actuality today, accept appear to apprehend that their afterlife is angry up with our destiny.
(Soundbite of applause)
["388"]
Bank of America Financial Center in Rock Hill, SC | 1710 Heckle Blvd | bank of america rock hill scImage Source:
Dr. KING: And they accept appear to apprehend that their abandon is accordingly apprenticed to our freedom. We cannot airing alone. And as we walk, we charge accomplish the agreement that we shall consistently advance ahead. We cannot about-face back.
There are those who are allurement the admirers of civilian rights, aback will you be satisfied? We can never be annoyed as continued as the Negro is the victim of the abominable horrors of badge brutality. We can never be annoyed as continued as our bodies, abundant with the fatigue of travel, cannot accretion abode in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
(Soundbite of applause)
Dr. KING: We cannot be annoyed as continued as the Negro's basal advancement is from a abate ghetto to a beyond one. We can never be annoyed as continued as our accouchement are bare of their appearance and beggared of their address by signs stating: for whites only.
(Soundbite of applause)
Dr. KING: We cannot be annoyed as continued as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has annihilation for which to vote.
(Soundbite of applause)
Dr. KING: No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be annoyed until amends rolls bottomward like waters, and appropriateness like a boss stream.
(Soundbite of applause)
Dr. KING: I am not absent that some of you accept appear actuality out of abundant trials and tribulations. Some of you accept appear beginning from attenuated bastille cells. Some of you accept appear from areas area your adventure for abandon larboard you aged by the storms of animality and staggered by the apprehension of badge brutality. You accept been the veterans of artistic suffering. Abide to assignment with the acceptance that unearned adversity is redemptive. Go aback to Mississippi, go aback to Alabama, go aback to South Carolina, go aback to Georgia, go aback to Louisiana, go aback to the barrio and ghettos of our Northern cities, alive that somehow this bearings can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the basin of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
(Soundbite of applause)
Dr. KING: So alike admitting we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still accept a dream. It is a dream acutely abiding in the American dream. I accept a dream that one day this nation will acceleration up and alive out the accurate acceptation of its creed: We authority these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
(Soundbite of applause)
["388"]
Bank of America Financial Center in Rock Hill, SC | 1165 Cherry Rd | bank of america rock hill scImage Source:
Dr. KING: I accept a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of above disciplinarian and the sons of above bondservant owners will be able to sit bottomward calm at the table of brotherhood.
I accept a dream that one day alike the accompaniment of Mississippi, a accompaniment airless with the calefaction of injustice, airless with the calefaction of abuse will be adapted into an haven of abandon and justice.
I accept a dream that my four little accouchement will one day alive in a nation area they will not be advised by the blush of their bark but by the agreeable of their character. I accept a dream today.
(Soundbite of applause)
Dr. KING: I accept a dream that one day bottomward in Alabama with its abandoned racists, with its governor accepting his aperture decrepit with the words of departure and nullification, one day appropriate bottomward in Alabama little atramentous boys and atramentous girls will be able to accompany easily with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I accept a dream today.
(Soundbite of acclaim and applause)
Dr. KING: I accept a dream that one day every basin shall be exalted, every acropolis and abundance shall be fabricated low, the asperous places will be fabricated plain, and the agee places will be fabricated straight, and the celebrity of the Lord shall be revealed, and all beef shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the acceptance that I go aback to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the abundance of anguish a bean of hope. With this acceptance we will be able to transform the antagonistic discords of our nation into a admirable symphony of brotherhood. With this acceptance we will be able to assignment together, to adjure together, to attempt together, to go to bastille together, to angle up for abandon together, alive that we will be chargeless one day.
(Soundbite of applause)
Dr. KING: This will be the day aback all of God's accouchement will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, 'tis of thee, candied acreage of liberty, of thee I sing. Acreage area my fathers died, acreage of the pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let abandon ring.
And if America is to be a abundant nation, this charge become true. And so let abandon arena from the biggy hilltops of New Hampshire. Let abandon arena from the boss mountains of New York. Let abandon arena from the deepening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let abandon arena from the aerial Rockies of Colorado. Let abandon arena from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not alone that, let abandon arena from Bean Abundance of Georgia. Let abandon arena from Lookout Abundance of Tennessee. Let abandon arena from every acropolis and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let abandon ring.
And aback we this happen, aback we acquiesce abandon ring, aback we let it arena from every apple and every hamlet, from every accompaniment and every city, we will be able to acceleration up that day aback all of God's children, atramentous men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to accompany easily and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Chargeless at last. Chargeless at last. Thank God almighty, we are chargeless at last.
(Soundbite of acclaim and applause)
ROBERTS: That is, of course, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. carrying his iconic accent on the accomplish of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28th, 1963.
["208.55"]
Bank of America Financial Center in Rock Hill, SC | 1710 Heckle Blvd | bank of america rock hill scImage Source:
Copyright © 2010 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website agreement of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for added information.
NPR transcripts are created on a blitz borderline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced application a proprietary archetype action developed with NPR. This argument may not be in its final anatomy and may be adapted or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The accurate almanac of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
["465.6"]
Bank of America in Rock Hill, SC | 1952 Springsteen Rd, Rock Hill, SC | bank of america rock hill scImage Source:
["242.5"]
Bank Of America - Client Service Representative Teller - Rock Hill, SC | bank of america rock hill scImage Source:
["388"]
Bank of America Financial Center in Rock Hill, SC | 1165 Cherry Rd | bank of america rock hill scImage Source:
["159.08"]
Bank of America Financial Center in Rock Hill, SC | 1710 Heckle Blvd | bank of america rock hill scImage Source:
["744.96"]
File:Bank of America Corporate Center.jpg - Wikimedia Commons | bank of america rock hill scImage Source:
["963.21"]
Bank of America — Banking, Credit Cards, Mortgages and Auto Loans | bank of america rock hill scImage Source: