Dr Martin Luther King Jr, August 28th 1963

 

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. [Applause]

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.

But one hundred years later,
we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still 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 an appalling 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 would be guaranteed the
inalienable 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 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 rise from the dark and desolate
valley
of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time
to open
the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to
lift our
nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of
brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the
nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the
determination
of the Negro. 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 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 their freedom is inextricably bound to
our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must
make the pledge that we shall 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 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 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 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 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,
that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, 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 a table of
brotherhood.

I have a dream that one
day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the
heat
of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of
freedom and
justice.

I have a dream that my four
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 the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping
with
the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into
a situation
where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands
with little
white boys and white girls and walk together 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 with which I return to the South. 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 peaks 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 every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let
freedom
ring.

When we let 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! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

You step up to the tee on your least favourite hole on the course. You prepare for the shot, you utter to yourself “I will make this drive, this time it will be different, this time, I will strike the ball square on, the ball will soar through the air, and following a graceful arc it will land right smack in the middle of the fairway exactly where I’m aligned”. Your unconscious mind is informed by this belief and promptly provides you with a swing that will support your belief.

How do you train yourself to do this?

• You spend several practice sessions building a new belief about your ‘nemesis’ hole (any hole for that matter).
• You visualise making the stroke, sending the ball to exactly where you want it.
• You do this in your mind’s eye, calmly, cool-ly. Not only have you seen what you will see with your own eyes, you’ve heard what you will hear with your own ears, you’ve felt how you will feel having made the shot, you’ll taste victory and smell success, exactly as if you had achieved it.

I’ll repeat that, exactly as if you had achieved it.

Let this be true, and it will be so.

By doing this, you are stepping into the future and acting as if you had conquered the hole and provided your unconscious with new images and new neural pathways to access now and in the future.

This is altering your belief. With practice, you will indeed step up to that tee and your unconscious self belief is of someone who has conquered that hole and will do so now.

This is why, in visualisation, we go beyond simply ‘seeing’ a picture of our success to the full range of senses – building a rich, realistic, high fidelity experience as if it were real. This is stepping into the future.

And you all know that it is much easier to look back into the past and see what happened to get here than it is to see the future.

Hindsight is 20/20 – and stepping into the future provides you with just that. Now that you believe in the tangible, real, success of winning that competition, striking that perfect drive, chipping that perfect lie onto the green and sinking that 50ft put – you can look back and see how you got there – that’s your training plan.

“Yes, but, it isn’t actually real!”. Who says that it isn’t real? It is a perception certainly.

So let’s pop back in time to the moment when you accomplished something extraordinary, something that beforehand you thought was genuinely impossible for you. It matters not what it is, perhaps, the moment that you took your first steps (if you remember at that age), or perhaps, the moment you successfully struck your first golf ball and it actually went towards the hole, or perhaps you cooked a delectable meal, or got a promotion, or was headhunted for a position. Whatever that moment is – you have a picture in your mind, you can generate how it felt, what you heard, what you could taste, smell – and how you felt. You know that it is real – it happened… but. my friend, what you just experienced was a perception – you perceive your reality to be true – indeed, your perception is your reality. Just as everyone else’s perception is their reality. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with the same perception or not – you are experiencing it from a different viewpoint remember – it is your perception, and it is your reality. Believe in your perception and you will thrive.

What we’re doing with altering self-beliefs through our version of visualisation, is creating neural pathways that are real (your brain cells grow and create real new pathways), that your unconscious mind will use as both the quickest route and the route that doesn’t incur conscious objections.

Your visualised experience becomes the route that generates the physiological response – which is, yep you guessed it, the one that makes success the reality (but there again, you only perceive reality, so is it true?)

A study in Switzerland wired up downhill skiers to record their muscle movements and nerve triggers. The study discovered that the muscles used during the actual ski run were primed in exactly the same order during the pre-run visualisation that the skiers went through. The skiers practiced the entire run in the heads before the run and their muscles responded to the impulses required for the actual run.

When interviewed after the run, the skiers were asked to describe their pre-run visualisation and then the run itself. The impulses and muscle responses were again recorded, the only differences between these was the pre-run visualisation was always a perfect run, and some of the skiers had fallen during the actual run.

Well, that just goes to prove that visualisation doesn’t mean perfection in reality doesn’t it!

Yes, you are absolutely right. Real world circumstances can, on occasions, disrupt the best laid plans. But if you don’t visualise the achievement beforehand, how do you know that you achieved what you set out to do?

Having a vision of your goal, your plan whatever you intend to do enables three very important things:

• By creating a rich sensory picture or movie beforehand, you are actually preparing your muscles (those things that do the actual work of your body) and practicing whatever you need to do.
• By having this rich sensory picture or movie of the goal, you are now able to communicate this to others much more easily.
• You will know when you have achieved what you set out to do.

One of my favourite speeches that is a rich, sensory vision is Martin Luther King’s”I have a dream” speech.

Watch the whole thing next, and enjoy the deep sensory experience of listening to this powerful speech.