Reading: Real-World Reading

Summarizing Martin Luther King's

"I Have a Dream" Speech

 

            Today's Snack: What is your dream food? What food would you eat every day, if you could, with no worries about calories or cholesterol? Most kids would have to say ice cream. So, in memory of a great American, Martin Luther King, have a couple of scoops of your favorite flavor of your dream food. Wash it down with a glass of cold milk. Shout as if you are speaking to a million people on the Washington Mall, "God bless America, where dreams come true!"

 

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Supplies:

Leader or older students can read the text of the speech, below,

or watch it on a laptop at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

Piece of paper | pencil or pen

 

 

            It's amazing how closely related listening and reading are. Whenever you work to become a better listener, you'll also make yourself a better reader!

 

Here's an example:

 

When you listen to someone talking, can you say what the main point was, afterwards? That's a great skill to have. It's the same thing with reading a story, article or school assignment. It is important that you can get the main point, and sum up the meaning of what you read in one sentence.

 

We call this "comprehension," or understanding. Whether you are listening, or reading, it's important to keep thinking, so that you can come away with the main point of what you heard or read. If you can sum it up in one sentence, you've got it!

 

So, in honor of Martin Luther King, listen for the main point while you either read his most famous speech, "I Have a Dream," printed below . . . or have someone read it aloud to you . . . or listen to it and watch him give the speech yourself, on:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

 

            Afterwards, on a piece of paper, write the main point of that speech in a sentence or paragraph. That's called "summarizing," or totaling up the most important idea. Discuss with someone else what you came up with.

 

            Someday, YOU may be called upon to give an important speech . . . and won't you want the audience to "get" YOUR main point? Let's practice now, so that when it's your turn to speak, you'll be good at making your main point clearly, too.

 

 

NOTE: Martin Luther King, Jr., was a Baptist minister who became a key leader of the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1950s and '60s.

He fought for black people to have the same rights as white people. Why was that needed? In many areas of the country, particularly in the South, there was discrimination. That means some people got better treatment than other people, based only on the color of their skin. In many cases, African-Americans were discriminated against by white people in power. They couldn't go to certain schools, they couldn't stay in certain hotels, they couldn't get certain jobs, they had to ride in the back of the bus, and they couldn't even drink from a drinking fountain at a store.

A massive protest march on Washington, D.C., was organized for Aug. 28, 1963, and that's where Dr. King delivered this speech. It was said to be one of the greatest speeches in history. It was so powerful, it spearheaded the 1964 Civil Rights Act that corrected many of the unfair, discriminatory practices and made life better for everybody. For his role in achieving this, Dr. King received the biggest award in the world - the Nobel Peace Prize - in 1964.

 

 

 

"I Have a Dream" Speech

 

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 languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

 

In a sense we have 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. So we have 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 quick sands 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. 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. 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. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

 

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 selfhood 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. Some of you have come from areas where your 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, 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, 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. 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.

 

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a 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. 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 snowcapped 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 to 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!"