I Have a Dream Speech.

The article presents the text of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech entitled "I have a dream," given in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. King says that one hundred years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans still are not free; they are segregated, poverty-ridden, and exiled in their own land. He likens the African American march on Washington to cashing a check; the founders of the United States signed a promissory note with the Constitution guaranteeing the freedom of all men, but for the African Americans, it was a bad check returned and marked "insufficient funds." King asks for immediate change and says African Americans will not rest until they are granted citizenship rights, but he urges his people never to resort to violence. Even though they face great difficulties ahead, King says he holds to his dream, rooted in the American dream of freedom for all.