Newspapers / Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / Jan. 11, 2001, edition 1 / Page 37
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The Chronicle ^iJie Choice for ifn can American News SALU TING 'I have a dream' Address at March on Washington August 28, 1963 1 am happy to join with you today 1 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 Ameri can, 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 injus tice. 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 dra matize a shameful condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the archi tects of our republic wrote the magnifi cent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. fHis 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 happi ness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are con cerned. Instead of honoring this sacred C<fc'' ..iii .in. i.... ii. ?' I,; ? 1 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 tranquilizipg drug of gradual ism. 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 brother hood. 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 free dom and equality. 1963 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 busi ness as usual. There will be neither rest nor tran quility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirl winds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the See Dream speech on D11 ^^?gg ^mBk 1 r ^m" ''^Bp *1 JRKk ^^mjT > _V
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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Jan. 11, 2001, edition 1
37
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