8-28-10

"I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, 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 a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four 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."

"When we let 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!”"

 There were two events. One was promoted by the Government, telling its union members that they needed to attend...

"“We will not stand silent as some seek to bamboozle Dr. King’s dream,” said Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League. “We reclaim the dream of Dr. King for the 21st century. We reclaim this dream because we are here to say we must be one nation. We stand on the shoulders of our fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers.”

Jaime Contreras, president of SEIU-32BJ, said those gathered at the Mall with Beck “represent angry white people and hate-mongering.” He added: “We will not let them stand in the way of the change we voted for!”

 

Avis Jones DeWeever, executive director of the National Council of Negro Women, drew thunderous roars when she challenged those gathered to stand up for their place. “Don’t let anyone tell you that they have the right to take their country back,” she said. “It’s our country, too. We will reclaim the dream. It was ours from the beginning.”"

"This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. 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."

 

“I have a dream that America will pray and God will forgive us our sins and revive us our land,” King said. “On that day, we will all be able to lift every voice and sing of the love and honor that God desires of all his children.”

 

“We must not fundamentally transform America, as some would want," “We must restore America and restore her honor.”

“Here today, at the crossroads of our history, may this day be the change point,” “Look around you. You’re not alone. You are Americans! You have the same steel spine and the moral courage of Washington and Lincoln and Martin Luther King. It is in you. It will sustain you as it sustained them.”

“Something beyond imagination is happening. Something that is beyond man is happening,” Beck said” America today begins to turn back to God.”

….”It happens the same way, it has since the Burning Bush. Moses. Freedom. And then they forget. They wander ’til they remember that God is the answer. He always has been. And then they begin to trust.”

 

“Somewhere in this crowd — I know it. I have been looking for the next George Washington. I can’t find him. I know he is in this crowd. He may be 8 years old, but this is the moment. This is the moment that he dedicates his life, that he sees giants around him. And 25 years from now, he will come not to this stair, but to those stairs. And he can proclaim, ‘I have a new dream.’ That must be our goal: to raise the next great monument.”