Video Transcript: Vision Introduction

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. 

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, 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!3