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CNN NEWSNIGHT AARON BROWN

'I Have a Dream' Remembered

Aired January 17, 2005 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
Much of our attention centers on Washington this week, the inauguration of the president on Thursday. But tonight, much of our attention centers on the Washington of two generations ago and the words that were spoken on a late August day in 1963. You'll hear the words, all of them, spoken by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that day.

What happened in Washington was not so much planned as born, a moment. And, if it looks like a few moments before or since, it sounded like nothing else ever had or perhaps ever will.

History hands out few opportunities to make a difference. Humanity rarely supplies a person to take the chance. People seldom rise to the occasion or, when they do, the notes and the lyrics don't seem to match. But on the 28th of August, 1963, everything fell into place, not for all time, not even for the era.

There was much yet to come but you could see where the country was going that day and feel good about getting there. So, tonight on Martin Luther King Day, the speech from beginning to end and talk of the new ways to look at the oldest of American problems, race.

First, though, current history, all this week CNN is focusing on defending America. Tonight, CNN's Deborah Feyerick looks at the work of 45,000 men and women on the front lines at the airport.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just separate your feet about shoulder's width.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Two years as a screener at New York's JFK Airport and Michael Kasar (ph) can't believe the things people still try to bring on an airplane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cuticle scissors and, you know their kitchen scissors and their butcher knives. People have come through with chain saws.

FEYERICK: What reason does somebody give for carrying a chain saw onto an airplane?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They didn't know. They thought it was OK.

FEYERICK: To bring a chain saw? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, to bring a chain saw. They'll say, "Well it doesn't have any gas in it so, you know I can't use it anyway.

FEYERICK: TSA chiefs say airport screeners across the country find 175,000 knives, 2,000-plus rounds of live ammunition, 70 guns and hundreds of razor blades, swords and box cutters every month.

(on camera): So your role is not to gauge intent. Is this somebody who is intent on doing something bad? It's an item that doesn't belong on the plane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

FEYERICK: Out it goes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. We're not judging the individual. We're judging the items.

FEYERICK (voice-over): But not everyone sees it that way. Has anybody ever been a little bit hostile once they are made to surrender an item?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. People do get annoyed. Unfortunately they think that, you know we're doing this because, you know we don't like them or they say, "Well, I don't look like a bad person, why me?"

FEYERICK (on camera): How do you deal with that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just try to remember that I could be in that position. I don't think anyone really wants to be touched by someone they know.

FEYERICK: There have been reports that TSA agents have been assaulted. Does that concern you that one day you're going to get a passenger who just doesn't agree with you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's always going to be that one person that you have to watch out for.

FEYERICK (voice-over): For Kasar...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Relax, relax.

FEYERICK: ...it's figuring out the difference between who is uncooperative and who is dangerous.

When you see those images of the 9/11 terrorists going through the detectors that must have some impression on you as somebody who is now charged with making sure that never happens.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It does because it makes you realize that the procedures are in place for a reason.

(on camera): So, I just have to pat down your upper body. FEYERICK: Kasar never thought he'd go into security. He'd been a vice president at Citibank and was working for a non-profit group funding disease research. Then came 9/11, funding ran out, Kasar got laid off. The brand new Transportation Security Administration was hiring.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): I really didn't approach it as, well, let me, you know see what I can do to fight the evil.

(on camera): Any other metals in your pockets, keys, coins, cell phone?

(voice-over): It actually came about as something that I said, wow, this is really critical.

FEYERICK: Up until 9/11, companies that handled airport cleaning often also screened bags and passengers. After 9/11...

KASAR (on camera): We're going to have to check you, OK?

FEYERICK: ...the feds took, over. Screeners now have to speak English, have the equivalent of a high school diploma and be U.S. citizens. The pre-9/11 screeners who reapplied for their old jobs only 15 percent made the cut.

MARK HATFIELD, JR., DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS, TSA: The rate of interception is dramatically increased. The skill of the screeners is dramatically increased.

FEYERICK: Still, there are problems and even the TSA admits the system is not foolproof. Across the country, screeners miss one in four bogus bombs or weapons sent through as a test.

Is one of your fears that something is going to slip through?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely. I mean that's the purpose that I'm here to ensure that nothing does slip through but we are all human.

FEYERICK: To stay sharp, Kasar switches tasks every half hour, as agency rules require. He admits there are days the work gets repetitive.

(on camera): At the end of the day how do you gauge that you have done a good job?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just from the fact that we know that no flights were delayed because of us. No one has really filed an official complaint against us. You felt safe and, you know you always have that sixth sense I think. I know that I did my job correctly and when I wake up the next morning and you turn on the news and everything is fine, then you really know you did your job well that day.

OK, sir, you're all set. Enjoy your flight.

FEYERICK (voice-over): Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Defending America all this week on CNN.

Ahead on the program tonight, "I have a dream" as remembered first by the people who watched and listened and were changed by it, a break first this Martin Luther King Day.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The rest of the program tonight deals with 16 minutes, give or take, on a hot day in a largely segregated city more than four decades ago. Just a month and a half earlier the governor of the State of Alabama had stood in the doorway of the state university trying to keep black students out.

A Klansman had murdered Medgar Evers in the State of Mississippi. Just a few months later, President Kennedy would be assassinated. The Civil Rights Bill was stalled in Congress. There was ugliness, vast ugliness to look back on and much yet to come. That was one side of the ledger 40 years ago.

Then there were the 16 minutes, give or take that we remember tonight as told first by the men and the women who were there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Many worried about violence. Some worried no one would show up at all. No one imagined how that one day and that one speech would change the debate over civil rights in the country.

George Raveling, who had been a basketball player in college, was a recent graduate when he went to the mall in Washington 42 years ago.

GEORGE RAVELING: I really didn't understand the true magnitude of it. I knew that if this event went off without incident, it was going to be the largest gathering of black folks in the history of America.

BROWN: Raveling went to the mall with a friend in the early morning, ended up as a volunteer security guard.

RAVELING: We got down there around 7:30 and since we were the first there he assigned us to the podium and so I stood about three people removed from Martin Luther King to his left during the speech.

BROWN: Amy Billingsley (ph) watched from the audience.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was very emotional because it was so unexpectedly joyful. I was a 26-year-old researcher at Harvard University and my husband, who was a Ph.D. student at Brandeis, and I just felt that it was important to come to Washington to this march. In that day, there weren't that many situations where black people and white people got together for a common goal and that was another high point of that day and of that effort.

RAVELING: The interesting part about the "I have a dream" portion of the speech was not included in the original text. He ad- libbed that portion in. He actually had used the "I have a dream" talk three or four times in previous speaking engagements.

If you listen closely in the background, you can hear Mahalia Jackson moving King along, "Preach, Martin, preach. Tell them about the dream, Martin. Tell them about the dream." And so, like a good country preacher he got caught up in the moment and he ad-libbed that part in.

BROWN: Raveling knows this because he wound up with Dr. King's actual text.

RAVELING: Just as he finished and the crowd gave this generous ovation, I just turned to Dr. King and asked him for the copy of his speech and he handed it to me.

BOB ADELMAN, PHOTOGRAPHER: When I was photographing him, I was just looking for that special moment when he would be reaching out and he would be fully animated. As he said "free at last," you know I got that frame that I was looking for. The photograph is a definitive picture of Dr. King at probably the greatest moment of his life and our -- and one of the great moments in all our lives.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT, CNN JOHANNESBURG BUREAU CHIEF: I was sitting at the "New Yorker" magazine where I was on the way to becoming its first black writer. That's where I was listening to his speech. What none of us realized, I think, was that Martin Luther King was preaching is own eulogy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In a moment, the legacies of Dr. King's speech, political and otherwise. We'll take a break first on Martin Luther King Day.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: From where Dr. King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol way off in the distance from where he stood when he stood there, it might just as well have been on Mars.

In 1963, there were five African American members of Congress, five. Today there are more still not many but more; liberal and conservative, urban and rural drawing support in many cases from across racial lines.

We're joined tonight by Harold Ford, Jr., Democratic Congressman from the State of Tennessee and Michael Steele, the Republican Lieutenant Governor of the State of Maryland. We are pleased to see them both.

Congressman Ford, let me start with you. Your father was a Congressman. How is this generation of African American leader different from your dad's?

REP. HAROLD FORD (D), TENNESSEE: First off happy King Day and good to be with you and Governor Steele. Dr. King was assassinated in my home city of Memphis. The Lorraine Motel where he was assassinated has now been converted into the National Civil Rights Museum and, in large part I'm a beneficiary of his hard work and many in that generation's work to make life better for all Americans.

I dare say anyone 34 years old, like I am, in this country, be it black or white or Latino, Asian American, Native American have all been uniquely blessed by the hard work and sacrifice made by so many.

Race is not the issue it was 30 years ago and I can only hope that as we move forward that race neither class, nor class I should say will be the issues they are today 30 years from now. So, we are an enriched and better nation as a result of all of their effort and all of their sacrifice.

BROWN: Governor Steele, has black leadership or must black leadership move from the grievance generation, if you will, to the for lack of a better term the opportunity generation?

LT. GOV. MICHAEL STEELE (R), MARYLAND: Well, I wouldn't quite put it as the grievance generation and let me again extend happy New Year and welcome back to Washington, my buddy Congressman Ford. It's good to see you.

I wouldn't really say grievance to opportunity. What I would say is Martin Luther King set the nation on a course that it just had to take. You could not avoid ultimately where we wound up and that is confronting ourselves in the mirror of racism, in the mirror of opportunity, the mirror of education, the mirror of segregation and deciding exactly who we were as a nation.

I kind of have looked at his legacy and determined that what Dr. King did, and I put it in I think rather clear terms during the speech at the convention, he talked about getting us to the lunch counter, giving us access to the same opportunities as every other American since we had a hand in building this great nation.

This generation is a post civil rights generation of which the Congressman and myself are the beneficiaries, as he said, and, in fact, we are the heirs of that legacy and are now responsible for broadening that base of support for civil rights.

We are the generation that now are not seeking a seat at the lunch counter but looking to own the lunch counter and that's where the opportunity part comes in, so it's not so much grievance.

I mean what are we upset about? We were demanding something that every other American had and had access to. So, it wasn't about so much that. We were just saying, look just give us our fair shake. Give us our fair opportunity.

And now that we have that opportunity, the test for this generation of African American leaders, the Congressman and myself and others is how do we empower our community to really fulfill Dr. King's dream within the context of an American dream?

BROWN: Congressman, we've got about a minute or so left. Finish this sentence as you wish. The challenge for black leadership in the country is?

FORD: To make America strong and better for all of us. I happen to think that when we reach out and try our hardest to educate kids in rural and urban America, when we try to find creative ways to provide health care for those who are working eight and ten and 12-hour days, five, six days a week, that's what Dr. King was committed to in the latter part of his life.

As you know, he was in Memphis marching with sanitation workers, not just black sanitation workers but sanitation workers whose message in their campaign for equality was "I am a man and I deserve to be paid equally and fairly."

Dr. King's legacy even finds itself manifesting itself in Iraq and Afghanistan as people now understand the right of self determination. And it even found its way across Eastern Europe when the Berlin Wall fell.

This is a legacy that is not only confined to black people or white people or Americans. It has a worldwide appeal and a global message and I can only hope that as we celebrate it, those around the globe will celebrate as well.

BROWN: Gentlemen, it's a nice day for the country, an important day for the country. It's good to have a few minutes of your time to share it. Thank you both.

STEELE: Thank you.

FORD: Thanks for having us.

BROWN: Thank you.

Still ahead on the program, people who in one way or another are making a difference, making the dream their own, willing to talk about this most difficult of American issues. We'll take a break first.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A program about Dr. King and about the speech and about race in America can't simply be a program about the past. In many ways it's easy to talk about the country's racial past. It is harder, scarier to talk about its present or even its future. We shall try to do that some tonight. Debra Dickerson is the author of "The End of Blackness." Cory Booker is a lawyer, a would-be politician. He ran for the mayor of Newark, New Jersey. He's an activist currently president of Newark Now. And Damon Dash is the founder of Roc-a-Fella Records. And we're pleased to see them all.

Debra, why is it so hard to talk about race?

DEBRA DICKERSON, JOURNALIST: I think there are people, a lot of people invested in the psychological status quo of race relations as we know them. I think there's a lot of fear but I also think there's a lot of complacency. People have their ground staked out and it's territory. It's turf.

BROWN: Do you think it is hard for the country for even good friends to talk about this?

CORY BOOKER (D), NEWARK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: Absolutely, I think it's still a very difficult issue because there's still real issues there but often I think, as was being alluded to by Debra, often it's a distraction from what the real issues are and to me the real issues are very practical.

They don't have to do with ideological issues of race, the real issues about the racial disparities in education, racial disparities in health and health care, racial disparities in income and these are still challenges America has to face up to.

BROWN: Do the kids who buy your records, buy your clothes, does Dr. King mean much to them?

DAMON DASH, ROC-A-FELLA RECORDS: I think to really understand what Dr. King means you have to kind of understand the climate or the time back then. I mean me growing up in the north and me growing up at a time when, you know, I've actually been able to articulate my concerns and if I'm getting mistreated I get to speak, it would be hard for me to fathom how much pain and suffering people went through back then.

So, in order to really educate the people, my demographic that I'm speaking to, it would probably take people like myself to truthfully speak on what I haven't experienced but what I've learned and try to a degree emulate or at least let them feel the pain and the struggle that Dr. King had to go through and the strength it took to speak up and to a degree (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BROWN: Do you think it's imaginable to them? I'm sure they've read it. They know it at some level. Do they feel it?

DASH: I feel like I'm the objective consumer and I'm saying it's not really imaginable to me when I watch it. It's hard for me to even fathom the suffering and just having to deal with all the racism and the segregation and the things of that nature.

And also, not being able to articulate things and if I say "hi" or something to a woman or a woman that's not my color having to get my face pounded out or beat or even killed and then there being no repercussions for it. It's just a very unsafe feeling, I would imagine, but I don't think it's fathomable. I try to talk to my kid about it. He's 13 and unless he -- he wasn't there and it's hard to paint that picture.

BROWN: We were talking earlier, Debra, about Bill Cosby. Why did the Bill Cosby moment when he stood up there and said, "Look, listen, we need to look at ourselves," why did that cause such a fuss?

DICKERSON: Well, he had a few moments.

BROWN: Yes.

DICKERSON: He went on a tear there saying that for a while. You know, he -- Bill Cosby is -- is an elder who has I think paid the price for a long time and I mean he's tired, you know. He's worked hard. He's worked in a very focused way. He's done a lot of things that he didn't have to do.

He took the movement very, very seriously and he did so much to help the movement and I think now he's an old man and he thinks "I can't believe things are still as bad as they are and that so much of the problem is internal" and I think it's just, it's a gesture of incredible frustration from him.

BOOKER: And you're understandably frustrated because, I mean if you look at King's generation, you literally had white people hunting down and shooting black people, James Meredith, Medgar Evers, you name it.

Now, I'm 100 times more likely or even more to be shot and killed by another black person than somebody white, so it's these kind of frustrations in my generation.

DICKERSON: It's heartbreak (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BROWN: Let me stop you. I need to take a break. I want to pick up the conversation at that point though.

We'll continue in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We continue with Debra Dickerson, the author of "The End of Blackness," Cory Booker, the president of Newark Now, and Damon Dash, the founder of Roc-A-Fella Records.

I said as we went to break, did the kids who buy did the kids who buy your records and your clothes hear the Bill Cosby moment different than these guys heard it?

DASH: Yes. I think they did. I know I did.

And when you don't understand the frustrations that Mr. Cosby had, just because he didn't we weren't there for that time, he has to also understand that we weren't there. We don't really understand the sacrifice. And, as I said before, it's not fathomable. So, I was a little disappointed that he would speak out against our culture, which is his culture, in public.

I would rather him brought people together and educated them a little more as to what the struggle was and how smart, you know, Dr. Martin Luther King was to bring all these people together and to protest in a nonviolent way and how evolved an individual would have to be to do such a thing, and also the sacrifices that everyone had to take, so that we had the freedom to do that -- so that we have the freedom to do what we do now.

But unless you really let someone -- educate, you know, someone to that, that can't fathom -- this was 20, 30 years ago -- it's hard to understand that man's frustration. But like I said, I would have rather him done that in private, as opposed to in front of so many different people.

BROWN: Debra?

DICKERSON: You know, I have to disagree. I don't think he was saying you guys are bad because you're not -- we suffered more.

I think what he was expressing was heartbreak that you see your children and your grandchildren doing so badly when it seems to you that so much of it is self-inflicted. I think it was heartbreak and not anger. It was disappointment, but mostly it was heartbreak. And I think it hurts -- I'm a 45-year-old woman. I have two children. And it hurts you when you see your children suffering in a way that appears to be largely self-inflicted.

(CROSSTALK)

DASH: I never said that I was angry or that he was angry.

What I said was, I would have -- I think it would have been better if he would have pulled the culture to the side, as opposed to chastising them. Or at least, being that he's in the public eye, he kind of knows how the press will misinterpret certain kinds of statement and how they're going to run with it, and have been a little bit more sensitive to that, because we're under a lot of pressure and under the magnifying glass as it is.

All I'm saying is, I think once he articulated his pain and why he was in pain, I think people would had -- understand the reasons for his frustrations a little better. And then, like I said, publicly, it wouldn't look like we're having some kind of inter-race beef with each other or one another. It's hard enough as it is. I mean, that's just how I feel about it.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Let me -- in 10 seconds or less, Cory...

BOOKER: Yes.

BROWN: Is this -- whether it's public or not, this is a conversation that's going on in black households all over the country anyway, isn't it?

BOOKER: Absolutely. Yes. You know, frankly, I don't care, public, private. The reality is, we've got to take responsibility within our communities.

We've got incredible challenges to face. And what I think Cosby was doing is what King in many ways has done, is expressing love for your people. My mom loves me. She points out the good and the bad. And we need to do that within our communities. We have incredible challenges. And we've got to take responsibility.

BROWN: Good to have you all with us. Thank you. Thank you.

BOOKER: Thank you.

BROWN: On tonight's CNN's anniversary series "Then and Now," we take a look at another influential African-American. Magic Johnson was one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He's become a hugely successful businessman. He's also changed the way we look at HIV/AIDS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NARRATOR: The basketball court was his stage. An Earvin "Magic" Johnson could cast a spell over fans and foes alike. Magic led the Los Angeles Lakers to five NBA titles and was three times named the league's most valuable player. But the superstar stunned the world on November 7, 1991. Everyone was afraid the magic would soon be gone.

MAGIC JOHNSON, FORMER NBA PLAYER: Because of the HIV virus that I have attained, I will have to retire from the Lakers.

NARRATOR: Magic took some time off. Started a strict drug regimen and managed to make a triumphant return to the Lakers in 1992 playing in the NBA all-star game, and later as part of the U.S. Olympic Dream Team.

JOHNSON: I've always felt that I was going to beat HIV and I had to put that in my mind. I have to live and breathe that every day, have that type of attitude.

NARRATOR: Thirteen years later Magic is more often seen in a suit than a uniform. Besides speaking about HIV AIDS he is now involved in several business ventures from movie theaters to hamburger chains. Magic lives in L.A. with his wife Cookie and their children.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Throughout the year, CNN will take a look back at the major stories of the last 25 years, as we mark a quarter-of-a century of bringing you the news. We'll take a look at all the stories that touched our lives, changed our lives and the people who did it.

When we come back tonight, the speech in full, because this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Dr. King gets the last word this evening, perhaps because to do it any other way just doesn't feel right. It's one thing to talk about the legacy of a moment four decades ago. We have and will yet again. It is the great unfinished discussion of our time.

That said, it's another thing to utter more than a word or two with the words "free at last" still ringing in your ears, whether it's for the first time or the 100th. So, in a moment, we'll simply say good night -- in a moment.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER: 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 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 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 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 Negro's 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 slave owners 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!"

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: As always, we want to thank the King center for allowing us to air the Speech. And you might want to visit them online. The address is www.thekingcenter.org.

Good to have you with us tonight. We'll see you tomorrow from Washington. Good night for all us.

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