Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 15 January 2001 — Page 25

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five scoff years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, sighed the Emancipation Proclamation, This momentous decree came as a great beacon of light of hope to miflions of Negro slaves who had jb&en Seabed in the flames of withering injustice It came as a joyous daybreak

to end the Jong night of their captivity.

UPl By one hundred hears later, the Negro stilt is not free. One hundred years ,.,

later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of Americas! society and of you have come frotn areas where your quest for «»* yyw wmm ids himseif an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dra- by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality, mats?.© a shameful condition. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capita! to cash a check. When faith that unearned suffering is redemptive,

the architects of our rep jblic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution Go back to Mississippi; go back to Alabama; go back to South Caroiina;

cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi canpot vote and s Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, we are not satis-

eousness like a mighty stream. nest for freedom feft you bane red

ation of Indepet y American was |

yes black men as well as I of life, liberty, arid the pur

, they were signing a promissory note to t. This note was a promise that all men, , would be granted the unalienable rights

us today the ler citizens

ion, ar

a bad check, which ■ m I

Jtie is bankrupt, we refuse to ireat vaults of opportunity

a check that will give us

® luxury of cooling off or to

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m ImrZnLdtho ^WebOTeaiso

valley of segregation to the sunlit porch of racial justice, now is the time to lift our nation from the quick rands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s chilou!d be fatal for the nation to overtook the urgency of the movement and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This swejteB

mar of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until

orating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end butataBP Those who hope that the Negro heeded to blow off steam and wil! now be| hta'ftt will have a rude dwhkenlhg if the natifih returns to business as usual. There wilt be neither rest nor tranq«riiity in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. Tire whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our natron 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 gain-

ing our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.* s * . .t ». . ..i., JC Jf... — ^ .5 .* . .1

G° back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana; go back ':o v,* slums and of the Northern cities, knowing that somehow this s.-r.;cIon can. and writ, v

Changed Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

So l say my frlmda, that evci^p^^must facethe difficulties

has defaulted on this promissory note of today and tomorrow, I still have' a dream, it is a dream deeply rooted in the *ofh^Qringthis^Arnerican#eam that one day this nation will rise up amfiive out the true

s creed - we hold these truths to be seif evident, that al! men are * ' ’\ i that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sonr. of former

s sweltering tthereisaninvigd but a beginning.

Let us not seek to sati of bitterness and hatr

plane of

I have a dream that one day, witn its governor having his lips c nullification, that one day, right the

girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and > ie f

and brothers, i have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exa mountainside shall be made low, the rough places sh/:> ; * • : the crooked places shall be made straight and the g'-

revealed and all flesh shall see It together. This is our hope. This is the faith that } go back ■

With this faith we will be able to hew out of thf- :

stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to cords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of bs - With this faith we will be able to work together, to

gle together, to go to jail tpg^thef, to stand up for freec >; ;

by drinking from the cup that we will be free one day. This will be the day wh? - our struggle on the high will be able to sing with new meaning - ‘my country c our creative protest to of liberty; of thee I sing; land where my father died, ter 1 n we must rise to the from every mountain side, let freedom ring” — and if Am

strug-

. !• '.owing Children ~ rweet land

ide:

be a great

their , mounted to storm the battlements of injustice must be carried forth racial army: 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 Neqro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with 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 sighs stating “for whites only.” We

nation, this must become true.

So let freedom ring from die prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New Vo Let freedom ring from the heightening Aiieghenk Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of • Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of Ca f

But not only that. ^

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georpia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennes : Let freedom ring from every hHI and molehill of f; :

mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when we allow freedom to ring, when we fet it f ng and hamlet, from every state and city, we will be abk When all of God’s children - black men and white me Catholics and Protestants-will be able to join hands and Wt the old Negro spiritual. “Free st last, free at last; thar

are free at last.

: T

nyivania:”' "' ^ wKSmmm

trr^^'ery

rt day ntiles.

‘Free at last, free at last: - ''

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