[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12741-12743]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             I HAVE A DREAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, tonight or in the very near 
future, I want everyone within the sound of my voice to read or reread 
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, ``I Have a Dream'' speech, a speech that 
I usually refer to as his ``insufficient funds or bounced check'' 
speech.
  I've often thought: I wonder what Dr. King's speech would sound like 
if he were here today to give it. Well, I'm not presumptuous enough to 
pretend that I know exactly what Dr. King would say. I really don't. 
But I thought it would be challenging and interesting to go through his 
speech, change it as little as possible, but insert today's 
circumstances and my own thoughts on how I think Dr. King's speech 
might have sounded if it were given today. So that's what I propose to 
do tonight. After all, on August 27, we will dedicate the King Memorial 
here in Washington, D.C., the day before his historic anniversary of 
the ``I Have a Dream'' speech on August 28.
  As my colleagues have now departed this institution for the August 
recess to return to their homes far and near, I thought it would be 
especially appropriate that the final speech delivered after this very 
tumultuous debate would give reference and reverence to the 
extraordinary insight of Martin Luther King, Jr.
  I also thought in light of the budget cutting deal and the bounced 
check and insufficient funds deal that was passed today in the Congress 
that it would also be appropriate.
  So tonight I want to try and give what some might call an updated 
version of Dr. King's ``I Have a Dream'' speech and what it might have 
sounded like today.
  Again, I make no pretense that my paraphrased version of Dr. King's 
speech does his original version any justice. But the following is my 
paraphrased version of that speech after reflecting upon today's budget 
deal.
  Paraphrasing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s ``I Have a Dream'' speech, 
and for those of you who are in your offices listening to the sound of 
my

[[Page 12742]]

voice, you might want to Google or go on the Internet and actually find 
the true text of Dr. King's speech and actually compare it to my 
exercise.
  Especially in light of today's budget deficits, cumulative debt, the 
need to raise the debt limit, and in the context of the need to also 
fight for jobs, education, health care, housing, equal rights for 
women, renewable energy, fair taxation and for the fundamental right to 
vote, Dr. King might have delivered this speech:
  I would have been happy today to join with those willing to take a 
balanced approach to budget cuts and revenue enhancements to bring 
about the greatest deficit reduction and debt reduction along with the 
most massive full employment plan in the history of our Nation. But 
that is not what the President and congressional leaders negotiated.
  Eleven score and four years ago on September 17, 1787, 39 great 
Americans signed the U.S. Constitution as witnesses. This momentous 
decree came as a beacon light of hope to millions of Americans who had 
been seared in the flames of British injustice.

                              {time}  2040

  It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of taxation 
without representation.
  But 224 years later, the American people are not free of deficits and 
debt. Two hundred twenty-four years later, the life of many Americans 
is still sadly crippled by the manacles of foreclosed homes and the 
chains of unemployment. Two hundred twenty-four years later, many 
Americans live on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast 
ocean of material prosperity. Two hundred twenty-four years later, many 
Americans still languish in the corners of American society and find 
themselves as exiles in their own land. And so we were elected as 
President and as Congresspersons to end this shameful condition.
  In a sense, the American people are looking to our Nation's capital, 
the President and the Congress, to be able 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 Americans 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 many of her citizens are concerned. Instead of honoring 
this sacred obligation, Congress has given many Americans 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, many Americans are still waiting to 
cash this check, a check that will give them upon demand the riches of 
freedom and the security of a job and justice.
  They are also looking to this President and this hallowed Congress 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 unemployment 
to the sunlit path of full employment. Now is the time to lift our 
Nation from the quicksands of inequality of income and wealth to the 
solid rock of economic justice. Now is the time to make full employment 
and social and economic justice a reality for all of God's children.
  It would be fatal for the Nation to overlook the urgency of this 
moment. This sweltering summer of Americans' legitimate discontent will 
not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of jobs and equality. 
2011 is not an end but a beginning, and those who hope that those who 
are currently blowing off steam and will soon 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 Americans are 
granted their full citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will 
continue to shake the foundations of our Nation until the bright day of 
full employment and economic justice emerges.
  But there is something that must be said to those who stand on the 
warm threshold which leads into the palace of jobs and 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 jobs 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 protests to degenerate into physical violence. Again 
and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting oppressive 
economic forces with the spiritual force of unrelenting, but 
disciplined, determination.
  This marvelous new militancy which has engulfed many Americans must 
not lead us into a distrust of all politics and all politicians, for 
some politics and politicians are committed to full employment, social 
and economic justice, and some politicians also realize that their 
destiny is tied up with this larger destiny. Some politicians have come 
to realize that their jobs as Congresspersons are inextricably bound to 
Americans also having jobs.
  We cannot walk alone, and as we walk we must make a pledge that we 
shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are 
asking the devotees of social and economic justice, ``When will you be 
satisfied?'' We can never be satisfied as long as the American people 
are the victim of the unspeakable horrors of home foreclosures. We can 
never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of 
travel, cannot gain a job at a livable wage. We cannot be satisfied as 
long as the education of America's children leaves them uncompetitive 
in a new world market. We can never be satisfied as long as our health 
care system is ranked 37th in the world. We cannot be satisfied as long 
as one person in America cannot vote or one American believes they have 
nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will 
not be satisfied until ``jobs and justice rolls down like waters, and 
righteousness like a mighty stream.''
  I am not unmindful that many Americans are experiencing great trials 
and tribulations. Some Americans are fresh from job rejections, and 
some Americans have been refused an adjustment to their mortgage which 
has left their family battered by the storms of home foreclosures and 
staggered by the winds of homelessness. You have become the veterans of 
unearned suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned 
suffering is redemptive. Go forward in Mississippi, go forward in 
Vermont, go forward in Michigan, go forward in Hawaii, go forward in 
Oregon, go forward in Florida, go forward in the ghettos and barrios of 
our cities and in rural Appalachia 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 around a table of 
brotherhood where full employment, high quality health care for all 
Americans, excellence in education for every child, and safe, sanitary 
and affordable housing for every family is their natural experience.
  I have a dream that one day, absent the false excuse of sweltering 
deficits and debt and the heat of economic injustice, America will be 
transformed into an oasis of full employment, freedom and economic 
justice.
  I have a dream that my two 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, and that voting will be as natural as 
breathing, and no trickery or legal obstacles will be thrown in their 
path.

[[Page 12743]]

  I have a dream today.
  I have a dream that one day over Michigan, over Ohio, Illinois and 
Indiana, with its wicked unemployment and suffering families, that one 
day right there in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana, all of these 
families will be able to enjoy full employment, social and economic 
justice, and all will be able to join hands as brothers and sisters.
  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 my hope, and this is the faith that I go forward with every 
day.
  With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of 
deficits and debt a stone of economic hope and justice for all 
Americans. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling 
discords of unemployment and home foreclosures into a beautiful 
symphony of full employment and affordable housing. 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 and fully employed 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.

                              {time}  2050

  And so let freedom, full employment, and the right of private and 
public workers to organize into unions to protect their interests ring 
from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom and public 
education of equal high quality for all of America's children ring from 
the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring and health care of 
equal high quality for all Americans ring from the heightening 
Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom and a clean, safe, and 
sustainable environment ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. 
Let freedom ring with safe and sanitary and affordable housing from the 
curvaceous slopes of California.
  But not only that, let freedom and equal rights for women, for gays 
and lesbians ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom, fair and 
progressive taxation ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let 
freedom and the right and the ability to vote ring from every hill and 
molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom, social 
and economic justice ring throughout America.
  And when this happens, when, my friends, we allow freedom, full 
employment, social and economic justice 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 the day when all of God's children, black 
men, white men, women, Jews, Gentiles, and Muslims, Protestants and 
Catholics, gays and straights, those who are whole and those who are 
handicapped, 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.
  I want to remind everyone that I just finished giving my paraphrased 
version of what I thought Dr. King might have said had he been alive 
today and witnessed this debate, especially in light of the budget 
cutting, the insufficient funds, the bounced check deal that Congress 
passed on this day. I tried to remain as faithful as possible to the 
original speech, simply filling in my own thoughts and ideas in the 
current context, but I make no pretense to have done justice to the 
original version.
  Again, I urge my friends and my colleagues and all those who can hear 
my voice to read or reread Dr. King's ``I Have a Dream'' speech at your 
earliest convenience.
  Mr. Speaker, it is in this speech that Dr. King delivered the 
economic substance of his expectations of Democrats and Republicans in 
the Congress. America has issued all of us a bad check. It has come 
back marked ``insufficient funds.'' But we refuse to believe that the 
great vaults of opportunity of this Nation are bankrupt. If we can 
spend billions of dollars to put a man on the Moon, if we can spend 
billions of dollars on a war in Afghanistan, spend billions of dollars 
on a war in Iraq, spend tens of millions of dollars per week on a war 
in Libya, then, Mr. Speaker, this Congress can find enough money to put 
a man on his own two feet right here in America.
  I have not given up on America, and I hope we don't give up on 
America.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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