America Is Essentially A Dream
Full text of Martin Luther Rex Jr. voice communication: "The American Dream" delivered on July 4th, 1965
TRANSCRIPT:
Martin Luther Rex Jr.
I would like to talk over some of the problems that we confront in the world today, and some of the problems that we confront in our own nation by using as a subject area: The American Dream .
I choose this subject area considering America is essentially a dream . It is a dream of a land where men of all races, of all nationalities, and of all creeds, can live together as brothers.
The substance of the dream is expressed in these sublime words:
"We agree these truths to be cocky- evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed past their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Now, we notice in the very beginning that at the center of this dream is an astonishing universalism. Information technology does not say some men, but it says all men. Information technology does not say all white men, but it says all men, which includes black men.
Information technology does not say all Gentiles, but information technology says all men, which includes Jews. Information technology does not say all Protestants, simply it says all men, which includes Catholics.
That is something else that we notice in this American Dream, which is i of the things that distinguishes our form of government with some of the other totalitarian systems.
It says that each individual has certain inherent rights that are neither derived from nor conferred past the land. They are gifts from the easily of the Almighty God.
Very seldom, if ever, in the history of the world has a socio-political document expressed in such profound, eloquent, and unequivocal language, the dignity and the worth of human personality. While the American Dream reminds us that every human being is a heir of a legacy of worthfullness.
Simply ever since the Founding Fathers of our nation dreamed this dream, America has been something of a schizophrenic personality. On the one paw, we have proudly professed the noble principles of republic. On the other mitt, we have sadly practiced the very antithesis of those principles.
Indeed, slavery and segregation have been strange paradoxes in a nation founded on the principle that all men are created equal. But now more than than always before, America is challenged to realize its noble dream, for the shape of the world today does not permit us the luxury of an anemic democracy.
And the toll that the United States must pay for the continued exploitation and oppression of the Negro and other minority groups, is the cost of its ain destruction.
In that location are approximately two billion 700 one thousand thousand people in the world, and the vast bulk of these people live in Asia and Africa. For years almost of these people take been dominated politically, exploited economically, segregated, and humiliated by some foreign power.
Today, they are gaining that independence. More than one billion 600 million of the former of 1 billion 900 1000000 colonial subjects have their independence today, and they are saying in no uncertain terms that racism and colonialism must become.
So in a real sense our hour is tardily, and the clock of destiny is ticking out, and nosotros must act now before information technology is too tardily. It is trite but urgently true that if America is to remain a beginning-class nation, she can no longer have 2d-class citizens.
I must blitz on to say that we must not seek to solve this problem merely to run into the Communist claiming. Nosotros must not seek to practice it merely to entreatment to Asian and African peoples.
In the last analysis, racial discrimination must be uprooted from our guild because it is morally wrong. It must be done considering segregation stands against all of the noble precepts of our Judeo-Christian heritage.
It must be done because segregation substitutes an I-Information technology human relationship for the I-One thousand relationship, and ends upwards relegating persons to the status of things. And and so this problem must be solved not merely because it is diplomatically expedient, only because information technology is morally compelling.
And then every person of goodwill in this nation is called upon to work passionately and unrelentingly to realize the American Dream. And the persons who are working to exercise this are not dangerous agitators, they are not dangerous rabble-rousers, but they are the persons working to save the soul of America.
I would like to suggest some things that we must do in order to realize this groovy dream:
First, we must begin with a world perspective. For we will not exist able to realize the American Dream until we work to realize a world dream. A earth dream for peace, and brotherhood, and goodwill. The globe in which we live is geographically i, and at present nosotros are challenged to brand it spiritually one.
At present, it is truthful that the geographical oneness of this age in which we alive was brought into being to a big extent through homo'south scientific ingenuity. Man, through his scientific genius, has been able to dwarf altitude and place time in chains.
Yes, he'southward been able to cleave highways through the stratosphere, and our jet planes have compressed into minutes distances that once took days.
I recall Bob Hope has adequately described this new jet age in which we alive, and information technology is not the usual matter for a preacher to be quoting Bob Hope, but I think he has adequately described this new jet age.
He said information technology is an age in which information technology is possible to take a non-cease flight from Los Angeles to New York, and if on taking off in Los Angeles, you lot develop hiccups, you will hic in Los Angeles and cup in New York City.
You lot know it is possible, considering of the fourth dimension difference, to accept a flying from Tokyo on Lord's day morning and arrive in Seattle, Washington on the preceding Sat night. And when your friends meet you at the airport and inquire when you left Tokyo, you would accept to say, "I left tomorrow." That'southward the kind of historic period in which we live.
Now, this is a flake humorous, but I'm trying to laugh a basic fact into all of u.s.. And it is just this, that through our scientific genius, we have made of this globe a neighborhood.
At present through our moral and upstanding commitment we must brand of it a brotherhood. Nosotros, me must all larn to live together as brothers, or we volition all perish together as fools. Every individual must acquire this. Every nation must learn this.
Every nation must realize its dependence on other nations.
Some months agone, Mrs. King and I journeyed to that great state known every bit India, and I never will forget the experience. I never volition forget many of the conversations, feel to talk with the great leaders of India, and to meet people in the cities and the villages throughout that nation will remain dear to me as long as the chords of memory shall lengthen.
I must say to you this evening that at that place were those depressing moments. How can one avert being depressed when he sees with his own optics millions of people going to bed hungry at night?
How tin one avoid being depressed when he sees with his ain eyes, millions of people sleeping on the sidewalks at night?
In Calcutta alone, more than than a million people sleep on the sidewalks every dark. They have no beds to sleep in. They have no houses to go in.
How can one avoid being depressed when he discovers that out of Republic of india's population of 400 million people, more than 370 million make an annual income of less than $threescore a twelvemonth.
Most of these people take never seen a medico or dentist. And as I noticed these conditions something within me cried out, "Tin nosotros in America stand up idly by and non exist concerned?"
An answer came, "Oh, no, because the destiny of the United states is tied up with the destiny of India." And I started thinking of the fact that here in America we spend more than $1 million a day to store surplus nutrient.
America Is Essentially A Dream,
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