I HAVE A DREAM" (1963) 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 100 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 that 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 security of justice. We have also come to his 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 make real the promises of democracy. 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 lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. 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 hoped 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 a 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 they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. 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 Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. 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 our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for whites only." We cannot 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 jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by 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 South Carolina, 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 - so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, 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 the table of brotherhood
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice
I have a dream that my four little 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 down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification - one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and 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 that I go back to the South with. 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, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father's 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. And 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 snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes 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 molehill of Mississippi - from every mountainside.
Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow 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!"
The Democrat frontrunner has created a new constituency: its roots are not in race or class but in age and ideology
Gary Younge in New Hampshire Monday January 7, 2008 The Guardian
Gary Younge
'Let it be recorded," wrote columnist EJ Dionne in the New York Times, "that for at least one week in American history, in a middle-sized, midwestern state, a broad range of white voters took the presidential candidacy of a black man with the utmost seriousness." Dionne was not writing last Friday, following Barack Obama's victory in Iowa, but in April 1988 as Jesse Jackson's primary campaign in Wisconsin drew to a close
The week before Jackson had scored a stunning win in the Michigan caucuses, winning 55% support, including 20% of the white vote. In Wisconsin, a state with a black population of just 2%, white people were handing him their babies to kiss. "Look, something is happening up here," he told one of his aides. "And I'm not quite sure what it is. But this outpouring of affection wherever I go, it's for real. It's real, I'm telling you, it's there. I know when it's there."
As Obama arrived in New Hampshire - the third whitest state in the country - last Friday he could have been forgiven for thinking something similar. At an event in Milford some of his supporters were so fired up, organisers feared they presented a security risk. (At the same event, Hillary Clinton was booed off the stage.) Polls over the weekend have shown him gaining ground on Clinton before tomorrow's vote. His crowds here have been huge and rowdy. Something is happening here
Obama's win in Iowa was historic, and may yet prove to be decisive. But the fact that he has got this far and done this well is not unprecedented. In style, temperament, agenda and biography Jackson and Obama could not be more different. But in the extent to which they both epitomise a generational shift in the opportunities and constituencies open to black politicians and illustrate how to capitalise on them, they have a great deal in common. How they understand their role in politics, and how they are generally understood, tells us a great deal about how racial politics in particular and American politics in general have changed
For there are a number of commentators - particularly, but not exclusively, conservatives - who seek to portray Obama not just as a generation removed from Jackson, but the antithesis of everything Jackson stood for. To them his success signals both the failure of "black" politics and the removal of "black" issues from the political arena. As such, his victory does not reshape our analysis of how race is understood in America; it marks a repudiation of the existence of American racism itself
"The two big losers tonight are probably Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton," said the columnist George Will on election night. "Those who have a sort of investment in the traditional and, I believe, utterly exhausted narrative about race relations in the United States."
On CNN Ronald Reagan's drug tsar, Will Bennett, claimed Obama "has taught the black community you don't have to act like Jesse Jackson, you don't have to act like Al Sharpton. You can talk about the issues. Great dignity. And this is a breakthrough."
In truth, their comments really show that one of the few things that has not changed in the past 20 years is their backward and self-serving analysis of racial politics. "Men make their own history," wrote Karl Marx in the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. "But they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under given circumstances directly encountered and inherited from the past."
Jackson emerged from the civil rights movement at around the time Obama started school. His trajectory was classic for a black politician who came of age in the 60s. He rose through religion and entered the political stage from the left. His campaign was rooted in the black community (he won 98% of the black vote in New York City). But for it to be viable he had to create a constituency - of union workers, anti-nuclear campaigners, feminists, farmers, Latinos and gay activists - that had not previously existed. "You were bringing people together who had never been together before," a Jackson adviser, Bob Borosage, told Marshall Frady in his book Jesse. "There wasn't any inheritance so you had to do it almost literally union hall by union hall."
By the time Obama came of age, there was no civil rights movement to emerge from and few union halls to go to. But thanks to the gains of the civil rights era he could attend the nation's best universities (Columbia and Harvard) and get a fantastic job. With no roots in the black politics - the soil was too barren for anything beyond community organising - he emerged from academe. Politically speaking, he was not produced by the black community, but presented to it
In this respect, Obama shares a great deal with a number of black politicians of his generation who have come to the fore in recent years. Among them are the Massachusetts governor, Deval Patrick (Harvard); the Newark mayor, Cory Booker (Yale); the Democratic Leadership Council chair and former Tennessee congressman, Harold Ford Jr (University of Pennsylvania); and the Maryland lieutenant governor, Anthony Brown (Harvard). Obama's trajectory is not the rule; but nowadays it is by no means an exception
By the time these fortysomethings entered the political stage, there was little of the left actually left. The union movement had been decimated alongside the industries that provided most of their activists. Many of the small farmers had foreclosed. The feminist and civil rights movements had withered. In short, the forces that made a Jackson candidacy viable are themselves scarcely viable
That's not to say that there isn't considerable room to his left. John Edwards is running a far more progressive campaign, stressing corporate greed and pledging a rapid exit from Iraq. And one could imagine that a radical coalition uniting the burgeoning Latino movement, what remains of the unions, anti-war campaigners and environmentalists could be possible. The issue is whether it could win. Edwards is trailing, and Jackson lost in Wisconsin
Meanwhile, Obama has himself created a new constituency that is expanding the Democratic base, just like Jackson did. Its roots are not in race, class or single issues but age and ideology. The bulk of his support comes from young and independent voters. In South Carolina, we will see if African Americans will follow. Politically, the connections are looser and far less radical; but electorally they may prove more effective
In all of this, beyond some civil rights references, race is virtually absent from his message but central to his meaning. He doesn't have to bring it up because not only does he espouse change, he looks like change. He has the role of an inadequate and ineffective balm on the long-running sore that is race in America. His victory would symbolise a great deal and change very little
When he starts his speech, "They said this day would never come", the mostly white crowd in Iowa is thinking in terms of racial history, not just electoral victory. The babies Jackson kissed 20 years ago are going to the polls
Gary Younge is a Guardian columnist and feature writer based in the US. He was formerly the paper's New York correspondent. His most recent book is Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States; he is also the author of No Place Like Home, published in 1999
