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 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 their
captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is 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
languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his
own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've 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, yes, black men
as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable 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 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. And so, we've come to cash this check, a
check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of
justice.
