I have a dream - Ordination MR Dr. LEIRER

Medizinalrat Dr. med. univ. Hannes K. LEIRER
Ordination
Kreisarzt & Arzt für Allgemeinmedizin
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Good   morning !

I have a dream

Stardust
I have a Dream !

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."

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."

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 !


Dr. Martin LUTHER KING

Lincoln Memorial
August 23rd, 1963
Washington D.C.
Rosen-Gasse 10
+43/3352/33536-0
EU/A-7501 ROTENTURM AN DER PINKA
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