I Have a Dream

——Martin Luther King, Jr.

导读:马丁•路德•金(1929——1968),美国黑人律师,著名黑人民权运动领袖,诺贝尔和平奖获得者。1963年8月28日,马丁领导的美国黑人民权运动如火如荼之时,他在首都华盛顿广场林肯纪念堂前规模浩大的反种族歧视集会上,发表了这篇被誉为“20世纪最振奋人心的为自由民主而战的檄文”的著名演讲。

在该演说中,作者开门见山谈及了敏感的民权问题,接着,形象地描述了黑人悲惨严酷的现实状况,最后发表了大段的言辞把演讲引入到了高潮,使在场观众产生共鸣。然而,接着作者却话锋一转,以他仁慈的心和博大的胸怀唱起了“牧歌”。话语中的锋芒不见了,换之以柔和的语气,文章前后产生很大的落差。然而,作者真的能平和下来吗?如果我们用心读也会发现作者言辞间隐含着很大的无奈。也正因为无奈,作者才将现状的改变托之于梦想。然后,就是那响彻世界的声音,作者连用六个“我梦想有一天”,以诗一样的语言和酣畅淋漓的排比句式,正面表达了对自由和平等的渴望,抒发了他作为一个黑人内心最热烈的梦想,从而将全文推向了高潮。最后,作者喊出了“我们终于自由了!”每一个有良知的人,听到这充满正义、慈爱、宽恕的呼声,都无法不动容不感怀。

他的演说话音铿锵,雄浑苍凉,激昂雄辩,极具震撼人心之力,他也被誉为近百年最具说服力的演说家之一。

“我有一个梦想”现已成为了人类表达希冀和心愿的“保留句式”。

英音朗读

美音朗读

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 captivity.

But one hundred years later, 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. And so we've come here today to dramatize an shameful condition.

……

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 slaveowners 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 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, 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 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 hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happen, 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!"

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