God Answers the Faith – I Have a Dream, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.- MLK Holiday Jan 18, 2021

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1929 – 1969

 

1John 19-20 ”  19We love him, because he first loved us. 20If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (KJV)

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Christian Baptist preacher from Atlanta, Ga., 1929 – 1969.  He believed in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. His faith led him to lead and inspire others to speak and claim what God had given – freedom as a man. Top of the food chain.

He had a lot of resistance but he knew who God said he was and stepped into this reality.  He held victory over the lying wonders that tried to tell him something different than God had commanded.  He encouraged other African Americans to do the same. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a spirit of excellence,  led Africans Americans into a victorious civil rights movement.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led many non-violent marches, the most famous on Washington DC that led to the passing of the Civil Rights act of 1964. Initiated by President Kennedy and later passed by President Lyndon Johnson. The second largest act passed The 1965 Voting Rights Act,  which led to the right to vote for African Americans.

“The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88–352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.^[4] It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, and racial segregation in schools, employment, and public accommodations.”

(Source:  Retrieved Feb 24, 2020:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964)

Another significant victory was the right for African Americans to vote.

“Many brave and impassioned Americans protested, marched, were arrested and even died working toward voting equality. In 1963 and 1964, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. brought hundreds of black people to the courthouse in Selma, Alabama to register to vote. . When they were turned away, Rev. Dr. King organized and led protests that finally turned the tide of American political opinion. In 1964 the Twenty-fourth Amendment prohibited the use of poll taxes. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act directed the Attorney General to enforce the right to vote for African Americans.”

The 1965 Voting Rights Act created a significant change in the status of African Americans throughout the South. The Voting Rights Act prohibited the states from using literacy tests and other methods of excluding African Americans from voting. (source: Library of Congress/Elections. Retrieved on Feb. 14, 2020)

Below is Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s  speech, “I Have a Dream” and His acceptance speech of “The Nobel Peace Prize”.  .  He has many sermons that I encourage you to read. I am listing the source URL of 11 of his sermons that you can read free right now, at the bottom of this page under “Resource”.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream” is a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States”. (Wiki)

I Have a 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.” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

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.”¹

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! God Almighty, we are free at last!

 

 

Martin Luther King’s Acceptance Speech of the Nobel Peace Prize

Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”  Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The Nobel Peace Prize 1964-Martin Luther King Jr. Acceptance Speech
December 10, 1964, Oslo Norway

Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when 22 million Negroes of the United States of America are
engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award on behalf of a civil rights
movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of
freedom and a rule of justice.

I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for
brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in
Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeking to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered.

And only
yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because they
offered a sanctuary to those who would not accept segregation. I am mindful that debilitating and grinding poverty
afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder.

Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting
struggle; to a movement which has not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize.
After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of that movement is a profound recognition
that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time – the need for man to overcome
oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.

Civilization and violence are antithetical
concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not
sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later all the people of
the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a
creative psalm of brotherhood.

If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which
rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
The tortuous road which has led from Montgomery, Alabama to Oslo bears witness to this truth.

This is a road over
which millions of Negroes are travelling to find a new sense of dignity. This same road has opened for all Americans
a new era of progress and hope. It has led to a new Civil Rights Bill, and it will, I am convinced, be widened and
lengthened into a super highway of justice as Negro and white men in increasing numbers create alliances to
overcome their common problems.

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to
accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea  of
man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts
him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere floatsom and jetsom in the river of life, unable to influence the
unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless
midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of
thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This
is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and
whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the bloodflowing streets of our nations,

can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I
have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and

culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have
torn down men other-centered can build up.

I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and
be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land.
“And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none
shall be afraid.”

I still believe that We Shall overcome!
This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we
continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and
our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a
genuine civilization struggling to be born.

Today I come to Oslo as a trustee, inspired and with renewed dedication to humanity. I accept this prize on behalf of
all men who love peace and brotherhood. I say I come as a trustee, for in the depths of my heart I am aware that this
prize is much more than an honor to me personally.

Every time I take a flight, I am always mindful of the many people who make a successful journey possible – the
known pilots and the unknown ground crew.

So you honor the dedicated pilots of our struggle who have sat at the controls as the freedom movement soared into
orbit. You honor, once again, Chief Lutuli of South Africa, whose struggles with and for his people, are still met with
the most brutal expression of man’s inhumanity to man.

You honor the ground crew without whose labor and
sacrifices the jet flights to freedom could never have left the earth. Most of these people will never make the headline
and their names will not appear in Who’s Who. Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is
focused on this marvellous age in which we live – men and women will know and children will be taught that we have
a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization – because these humble children of God were willing to suffer
for righteousness’ sake.

I think Alfred Nobel would know what I mean when I say that I accept this award in the spirit of a curator of some
precious heirloom which he holds in trust for its true owners – all those to whom beauty is truth and truth beauty – and
in whose eyes the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.

Resource and source file:  11 Speeches by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by

RICHTON PARK LIBRARY MLK PROGRAM: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Speeches  Retrieve from the internet on Feb. 12, 2020. at http://wmasd.ss7.sharpschool.com/common/pages/UserFile.aspx?fileId=8373388

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Call to salvation:

Romans 10:9-10  9That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation.  John 3:5-6  5Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7