[00:18.522] We are confronted primarily with a moral issue.
[00:22.063] It is as old as the Scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.
[00:27.431] The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities,
[00:35.664] whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.
[00:40.570] If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public,
[00:48.264] if he cannot send his children to the best public school available,
[00:53.394] if he cannot vote for the public officials who will represent him,
[00:57.826] if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want,
[01:04.269] then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place?
[01:12.142] Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?
[01:18.308] One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free.
[01:28.850] They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice.
[01:33.237] They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression.
[01:38.017] And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.
[01:47.829] We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home,
[01:54.229] but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly,
[01:58.273] to each other that this is the land of the free except for the Negroes;
[02:03.581] that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes;
[02:08.859] that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?
[03:13.745] The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them.
[03:26.177] The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city,
[03:29.991] North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand.
[03:34.906] Redress is sought in the streets, in demonstrations, parades, and protests which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives.
[03:46.313] We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and a people.
[03:51.082] It cannot be met by repressive police action.
[03:53.761] It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets.
[03:57.777] It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk.
[04:02.424] It is a time to act in the Congress, in your State and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives.