Graduation Speech: A Life Of A Negro Slave

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I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greates•t demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five ~core years ago a great American in whose symholic shado·w we stand today signed the Emancipation
Proclamation. This momen:tous cleeree is a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slave·s who had been
~e.arrd in the flames o[ withering injushcc. It came as a joyous daybre,ak to end the long night of their captivity.
But 100 years late<r the Negro still is no•t fre·e. One hundred years later the 1i.fe of the Negro is still badly erippled by the manacles of s-t•grPg-ation and the chains of discriminatio11. One hnndred years later the Ne,gro live·s on a lone,Jy i:"]and of poverty in the mids1t …show more content…
ety and find;:; himself in exile in his own land. So wo '''<' come hf'rP torlay to r1r.amatize a s,hameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a eheck. Whrn the a. reb it ects of our Re:publie wrote the magnificent. wonls of the Constitution a.nd the Declaration o1 Independence, they we·re signing· a promiss'Cl<ry note to which eve·ry American wa:" to fall heir. 'I'his no,te was …show more content…
It is obvious today tha.t Amcri(·a lms <lcfaulted on this promissory note insofar as hP>r citi7.ens of co.Jo,r arr concP:rned. Instead of
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honoring ih1s sacn'd ohli,gation, America ha.s given the
Nngro p0ople a bad check, a check which has come back marked ''insufficient fn nds.''
But we refus.e to helieve that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We rp.fnse to belie\·~~ t.ha.t there are insufficient fuwls in the grea.t vaults of opportunity orf this nation.
So we've come to cash this check, a check that will give ns upon oemand the rirhes of freedom and the s·ecurity of justice. \Ve haYe a.bo come to this hallowed spot to remind
Ame.rica of the fipJ·ce urgency of now. 'l'hi:-; is no time to l'llgagc in the luxury of cooling off or to t.ake the tranquilizing dmg of graduali::;m. Now is the time to make real the promi~r·s of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark nnll clrsolate valley of segregation to the
,.unlit path of racial justi<·P. Now is the time to li.ft our uation from the quicksands of raeial injustice to the solid r()ek of
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