10 Landmark Quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech

Relive the stirring words from King's 1963 address.

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Remembering King's Words - BET.com recaps the powerful words behind Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered at the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom rally in 1963. Click here to see the full text of King's "I Have a Dream" speech. -- Britt Middleton "Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand 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 captivity."  (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

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One Hundred Years Later - "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." (Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

MARCHE SUR WASHINGTON 1963

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Cashing a Check - "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." (Photo: Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

A Promise to All Men - "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." (Photo: Rowland Scherman/Getty Images)

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A Promise to All Men - "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." (Photo: Rowland Scherman/Getty Images)

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A Bad Check - "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." (Photo: PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

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A New Beginning - "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." (Photo: Express Newspapers/L360/Getty Images)

Photo By Express Newspapers/L360/Getty Images

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Dignity and Discipline - "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." (Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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I Have a Dream - "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.'" (Photo: PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

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Let Freedom Ring - "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." (Photo: PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

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Free at Last - "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!" (Photo: Three Lions/Getty Images)