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“I Have a Dream”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
ANCHOR TEXT | SPEECH
This speech was given by Martin Luther King, Jr., on August 28, 1963, as part of the
March on Washington. He spoke to more than 250,000 people in Washington, D.C.,
one hundred years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. People came
to Washington to show their support for the American Civil Rights Movement.1 In his
speech, King says that he has a dream for a better America. King dreams that African
Americans, or Negroes, will finally be given the freedoms guaranteed in the Declaration
of Independence.
This version of the selection
alternates original text
with summarized passages.
Dotted lines appear next to
the summarized passages.
NOTES
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.
The marchers, King says, have come to Washington to draw attention to this injustice.
He uses the metaphor of cashing a check to represent the promise of freedom and
equality written in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. He says that
African Americans are here to collect that payment of equality that has long been due.
King emphasizes that the time for change is now. Those who think that African
Americans are simply expressing frustration and that things will quickly return to
business as usual are wrong. Those who are fighting for equality, King says, will not stop
protesting until freedom and justice are shared equally. Amid this revolutionary spirit,
King advises the marchers not to become violent or vengeful. They must always be more
disciplined and dignified than their opponents. They must not distrust all white people.
Many white people, like those marching alongside them, realize that their freedom is
tied to the freedom of African Americans.
© by Savvas Learning Company LLC. All Rights Reserved.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always
march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
Next, King responds to the question, When will you be satisfied? The Civil Rights
Movement, King says, will be satisfied when African Americans are not the victims of
police violence. When they can access the same businesses and public places as whites.
When the quality of their neighborhoods is improved. And when they are given the right
to vote for candidates who represent their interests. He acknowledges that many of the
people gathered have been beaten and jailed for participating in marches and rallies like
1. American Civil Rights Movement n. a movement by people in the 1950s and 1960s that
challenged the laws that treated people unequally.
GRADE 9 • UNIT 3 • Accessible Leveled Text • “I Have a Dream”
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this one. He urges them to continue to believe that their suffering is a worthwhile price
for equality.
NOTES
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.
Do not give in to hopelessness, King says. He has a dream based in the American Dream.
He dreams that the nation will fulfill the promise that all men are created equal. He
dreams that the sons of slave owners and sons of enslaved people will sit together at a
table and that a place as racist and unjust as Mississippi will be transformed for the better.
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!
King dreams that in Alabama—where the governor has refused to enforce civil rights
laws—black girls and boys will be able to hold hands with white girls and boys. He
compares the struggles of African Americans to those of the persecuted Israelites in the
Bible. Out of the mountain of suffering, King says, those involved in the movement will
make a stone of hope. With the disconnected noises of the nation, the marchers will
make a harmonious song.
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!2
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true.
King dreams of freedom in all parts of the United States, from the east coast to the west
coast, and from north to south. He lists the great mountains of the nation from which
freedom will ring. It will ring, he says, for people of all colors and all faiths. United, these
people will sing the words of the song originally sung by enslaved African Americans:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
2. My country ’tis of thee … freedom ring words from a popular song written in 1830.
GRADE 9 • UNIT 3 • Accessible Leveled Text • “I Have a Dream”
© by Savvas Learning Company LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted by arrangement with the Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers House as
agent for the proprietor New York, NY. Copyright © 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. © renewed 1991
Coretta Scott King.
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