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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.

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 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. And 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. And 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 self-hood 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.”¹

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. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — 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 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.

And 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.”2

This is our hope, and 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.

And 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 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.

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, 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!3

Republican Party members generally opposed slavery, but many of these people also believed that the federal government could not end slavery where it already existed. Most Republicans initially opposed granting African Americans equal rights with whites when and if slavery ever ended.

During the American Civil War, a more extreme group of Republicans called the Radical Republicans became quite influential in the party. The radicals believed that the Civil War had to end slavery. They felt the South’s agrarian economy centered on slave labor was ineffective. The South needed to adopt a free-labor economy so that the United States could emerge as one of the leading economic powers in the world. White Southerners also needed to end slavery for moral reasons. Radical Republicans believed that African Americans deserved immediate freedom from bondage and should receive the same rights as whites. Radical Republicans favored granting civil rights to African Americans for various reasons. Some radicals truly believed that African Americans were equals to the whites. Other Radical Republicans hoped to create a political base for the Republican Party in the South.

Radical Republicans in Ohio did have some political successes during and immediately following the Civil War. For example, most Ohioans supported the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment. This amendment formally ended slavery in the United States in 1865. Only one of Ohio’s representatives in Congress opposed the amendment’s ratification. Governor John Brough encouraged the Ohio legislature to approve the amendment, and both houses did so with significant majorities. Despite their support for emancipation, many Ohioans did not necessarily believe that Ohio’s African Americans deserved the same rights as whites.

The efforts of Radical Republicans to work for equal rights for African Americans, led to political conflict in Ohio. Many Ohioans initially approved the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted African Americans equal protection under the law. Members of the Union Party, a conglomeration of Ohio’s Republican Party and pro-war Democrats, strongly supported the amendment. Former Peace Democrats usually objected to all parts of it. The Peace Democrats claimed that the amendment empowered African Americans, while it denied former white Confederates constitutional guarantees. While some of these people opposed slavery, many of them also believed that African Americans were inferior to whites. The Ohio General Assembly with Union Party members in control of both houses of the legislature approved the Fourteenth Amendment on January 4, 1867.

In the state elections of 1867, the Union Party lost control of the General Assembly to former Peace Democrats. The Democrats quickly moved to rescind Ohio’s ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. On January 15, 1868, the Ohio legislature voted to reverse its earlier decision. Despite the Ohio legislature’s action, the federal government continued to count Ohio as one of the three-fourths of the states necessary for the amendment’s final approval. Ohio ratified the Fourteenth Amendment a second time on September 17, 2003.

Since the Civil War’s conclusion, Ohio citizens had debated whether or not to permit African-American men to vote. Members of the Democratic Party, especially former Peace Democrats, generally opposed suffrage for black men. Republicans supported extending the right to vote to African-American men. When the United States Congress submitted the Fifteenth Amendment to the states for approval, Democrats controlled the Ohio legislature and refused to ratify the amendment. Governor Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican, supported the amendment. In the state elections of 1869, Hayes retained his seat by a slim margin of 7,500 votes. The Republicans gained a slight majority in both houses of the General Assembly. The legislature ratified the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. The Ohio Senate approved it by a single vote, and the Ohio House ratified it with just a two-vote majority. Ohio’s Republicans had expected an easy victory in the state elections of 1869. Many white Ohioans, however, objected to granting suffrage to African-American men.

Following the adoption of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, the power and influence of the Radical Republicans began to decline. Many radicals believed that they had accomplished their goals for African Americans. Other people became disenchanted with the federal government’s inability to stop the violence toward African-Americans in the South. They saw no way to continue the struggle to secure the rights of African Americans and decided to move on to other issues.

Born on a farm in Michigan, Henry Ford had a well-to-do rearing that enabled him to explore the world around him. He became a self-taught watch repairman and supposedly could repair any timepiece that had not been crushed. He soon became fascinated with a four-wheeled go-kart device made from a small steam engine used in a sawmill. In that period, young Henry knew he would dedicate his life to four-wheeled propulsion. Later in his career, this dream moved him from the ground into the skies as he worked to perfect airplane engines during World War I and World War II.

Still in his teens, Ford moved away from his farm, which his father had hoped he would continue running, for Detroit, Michigan. There, he became an apprentice and eventually went on to repair engines for the gargantuan entity known as Westinghouse, the company that had perfected the portable steam engine that was used across the country. During the next few years, Henry married and had a child as he continued his farm labors and engine work. He soon became Chief Engineer at Edison Illuminating Company. During this time, he continued his work on the gasoline engine.

Henry soon formed the Ford Motor Company after he had perfected a design for his personal racecar. He knew then he was ready for the mass market. He also knew he had ideas that no one else had thought of – a way to mass produce, mass market, and sell his most famous car, the Ford Model T. By paying his workers double the national standard wages, Ford was able to bring in the best, most qualified workers and engineers to work for his company. Once he began his assembly line, the wealth and popularity of the company had grown exponentially. In his early autobiography, published in 1918, Ford labeled his aspirations – to outsell, outperform, and outsmart all his competition. He marketed his creations in Europe, which added greatly to his wealth and entrepreneur successes

As the driver, Mr. James Blake, moved a ‘colored section’ sign farther back in the bus to make room for additional white passengers, Rosa Parks refused to move toward the back of the bus, but instead slid over towards the window. Following, the bus driver called the police and had her arrested. With the backing of the NAACP and legal counsel, the Montgomery Bus Boycott that lasted well beyond a year was initiated. It became and still remains one of the grandest public displays against racial segregation in U.S. history.

At age eleven, Rosa stopped her home schooling with her mother Leona McCauley, a teacher at the time, and attended the Industrial School for Girls. Following, she attended secondary school but had to drop out because she had to take care of her sick grandmother and eventually her own mother.

In 1932, at the age of 19, she wed Mr. Raymond Parks who was also a physical rights activist alongside the NAACP. Ten years after finishing her high school degree in 1943, Parks became the secretary for the NAACP where she worked until 1957. In her autobiography entitled My Story, Parks revealed that she had always resisted mistreatment in many instances, but her arrest triggered the profound reaction and boycott.      

While some segregationists turned to violence, the African-American community of Montgomery held strongly together as the nation and even the world watched. In November of 1956, the United States Supreme Court outlawed further segregation on buses. Following, Parks moved to Virginia and found a job working at an inn. Eventually, her and her husband moved to Detroit, Michigan to be near Rosa’s family. In 1965, U.S. Representative John Conyers hired Parks until 1988. In 1995, she published another autobiography titled Quiet Strength that discussed how her faith kept her strong.

In her lifetime, Parks won numerous prestigious awards. This included the Congressional Gold Medal, the Alabama Academy of Honor and the Governor’s Medal of Honor. In 1996, Bill Clinton presented Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And, she even had a prize named after her called the Rosa Parks Peace Prize in Stockholm, Sweden.

Rosa Parks’ case wasn’t just a deciding factor for the removal of segregation on public buses, but an everlasting spark that helped the Civil Rights Movement burn even brighter.