I Have a Dream Speech, a fragment of the lost final draft

 

 

 

Let us take heed of the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

Facing the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I 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 white 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 celebrate together a collegiate football championship.

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 elite sport and television sitcoms.

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, perhaps it will be Uruguay.

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 grown and join hands with grown white boys and white girls as jailed and jailors.

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,« whites who own it and blacks who work it for minimum wage.2

This is our best hope, and this is all I can go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a pebble of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a collection of Coltrane and Monk LPs as our only solace. 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 at the last we will remain imprisoned together.

And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s white children will be able to sing with sardonic 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, much must remain true:

And so let freedom ring from the white communities of New Hampshire.

Let free verse songs ring from the black jail cells of New York.

Leave the freaks alone in the blighted Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let free tuition remain for whites only in the universities of Colorado.

Let clubs rain down freely in the hands of the racist cops of California.

 

But not only that:

Let free whites range unbotherd by black folk up that mountain in Georgia.

Let free whites gaze at neoliberal separate ain’t equal in Tennessee.

Let free blacks search every hill and molehill of Mississippi looking for work.

From every mountainside I see the same shit in different caption.

 

And since this is what happens, and when we allow change for the worse, when we imbue every village and every hamlet with yet deeper hatred, in every city’s every black ghetto, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s black children, men and women, young and old, will be able to join hands and if we escape this dystopian and doomed nation—because you know the whites ain’t leavin–we may finally sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!3