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. Thank you, Mrs. Wagador. I'll
come back and get Cory. That's your mother? Yeah. Your what? What? Your mother's colored. Of course,
I'm colored.
But 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. It's just when I saw you at the funeral, to see how
much we look alike.
to see how much we look alike. It just didn't seem right not to at least say hello and to meet you.
At least once. I just felt I had to do it. You know, common blood. Yes, yes, common blood. I think I
understand, Clay. Our physical similarity is disarming, isn't it? Our physical similarity is disarming, isn't it?
We're brothers. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that
honor and suffering is redemptive. Your restraint is admirable. Your restraint is admirable. Yeah.
With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony
of brotherhood. Now, come on, boys. Where's your spirit? I don't hear no singing. When you were slaves,
you sang like birds. Come on, how about a good old nigger work song? What's wrong, man?
I get no kick from champagne. Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all. So tell me, why should it be true
that I get a belt out of you?
Some get a kick from cocaine. Hold it, hold it. What the hell is that shit? I'm in a song. A real song.
Something like... Swing low, sweet chariot. Swing low, chariot. Don't know that one, huh?
Well, how about the camp town ladies? The camp town ladies. The camp town ladies. Oh, you know. The
camp town ladies sing this song, doo-dah, doo-dah. The camp town racetrack five miles long, all a doo-dah
day. Run, run, run.
Let freedom ring when it 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
our children, black men and white men,
and 10,000 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! Here, let me pour that
for you. Thank you, Maurice. Nice party, huh? Very enjoyable. Yeah, this is a nice town. It's the kind
of town you could settle down and carve yourself out of home.
Listen, Stevens, I'm not going to mince words. After your brother gets sent up the river, there's going
to be a certain job opportunity open up that I want to speak to you about. You want me to replace Chris?
There's no point in broadcasting it. Look, you showed me something today, Stevens. You showed me a man
who is ready and willing to pick up the fallen standard and continue the charge.
You've got a way with words, son. You've got the Stevens way with words. And on top of that, you don't
sound black. Truth is, Bernard, if I close my eyes, you sound as white as Casper. You know something,
Maurice? I like you. I do. And it troubles me. Troubles you? Yeah, this may come as a shock, but you're
a bigot. Bigot? You're a racist. Wait a minute, because you don't sound black. I'm a bigot and a racist.
Look, Stevens, I know black people. I've been around black people and know how they talk. They say,
uh, thing instead of thing. And they say, uh, ax. I ax you this, brother. I ax you that. Now, you don't
say ax. Neither does Colin Powell and that, uh, that, uh, Denzel fella. You know what's interesting?
Is the linkage of King's English and superior breeding. And the further linkage of superior breeding
with being white. Now, rather than saying,
there's a black person speaking King's English, we say there's a black person speaking white. What's
wrong with that? Well, for a long time, it hung me up. I mean, I tried to talk ghetto in high school,
and it wasn't me. Very unsettling. Well, what's your point? My point? Well, I'm not exactly sure. Although,
admittedly, you're a racist, and what you said makes me uncomfortable, there's a crown with truth to it.
So I suspect it has more to do with intellectual and cultural standards than it does with racial
distinctions. Why is it that when I say something like that, I'm a racist, and when you say something
like that, you're just being thoughtful? Oh, no, Maurice. I'm a racist, too. For a long time, I didn't
like being around white people. But once I realized that imperialism, slavery, and genocide weren't
exclusively white institutions, it helped me loosen up a bit. 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. Sit down, please.
Well, what can I do for you today?
I have this problem, this very delicate matter. I have a friend of mine who wants to emigrate to South
Africa. Yes, of course. I can certainly help him do that. Oh, sure. But I want you to talk him out of
it. Talk him out of it? Yeah. Whatever for? Well, you see, this is such a bad time for him to go to
South Africa. I mean, with all the trouble and everything, OK? Oh, look, why don't you ask your friend
to come back later in the week? We can sit down. No, he's here. He's here. He's here? Yeah, he's here
now. Where? Alphonse. Alphonse.
What are you doing? I think there must be some mistake. Say what? Sir, listen to your friend here. He
knows what he's talking about. I don't think you really want to go to South Africa. Why not? Because
you're black. You are. This will be the day when all of God's children
be able to sing with new meaning. My country tears at thee. Sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land
where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims' 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 snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes
of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring
from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
The sheriff is a niche! What did he say? The sheriff is near! No, God of Blaming didn't believe it!
The sheriff is a niche!
Chairman of the Welcoming Committee, it is my privilege to extend a laurel and hearty handshake to our
new... nigger.
Excuse me while I whip this out. The only thing that matters is what they feel and how much they feel
for each other. And if it's half of what we felt,
For you two and the problems you're going to have, they seem almost unimaginable. But you'll have no
problem with me. And I think that when Christina and I and your mother have some time to work on him,
you'll have no problem with your father, John. But you do know, I'm sure you know, what you're up against.
There'll be a hundred million people right here in this country who will be shocked and offended and
appalled at the two of you. And the two of you will just have to ride that out, maybe every day for
the rest of your lives. You can try to ignore those people, or you can feel sorry for them and for their
prejudices and their bigotry and their blind hatreds and stupid fears.
But for necessary, you'll just have to cling tight to each other and say, screw all those people. Anybody
could make a case, and a hell of a good case, against your getting married. The arguments are so obvious
that nobody has to make them. But you're two wonderful people who happen to fall in love and happen
to have a pigmentation problem.
And I think that now, no matter what kind of a case some bastard could make against your getting married,
there would be only one thing worse. And that would be if, knowing what you two are, knowing what you
two have, and knowing what you two feel, you didn't get married.
Tillie, when the hell are we gonna get some dinner? 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. What do you want to know? Is Mr. Biasi at R.N.? No, a technician. She used to be a
dancer. She told you that? We're friends. She told me about it.
She was performing with a modern dance company. I don't know if she made a living out of it. But you
do know what happened? She was attacked down in the subway by three youthful offenders. After she recovered,
she came to work here. And what was her reaction to the attack? Same as anybody's. She was fearful,
resentful of all the little... Little what? Little black bastards?
You see some black teenagers on the train? Are you automatically afraid of them, Miss Maltese? Aren't you?
the former slaves and the sons of former slave owners. Will they be able to sit down together at the
table of brotherhood? How about your glasses? Can I get you a drink either, Mr. and Mrs. Prentice? No,
thank you. John, would you? Mike? No, you've had enough as it is already. Dad? What's going on? There's
something I want to say, and I'd like you to sit down and see if you can keep quiet for once in your
life. Please, sit down, John. Sit down, Chris, please.
I have a few things to say and you might just think they're important. This has been a very strange
day. I don't think that's putting it too strongly. I might even say it's been an extraordinary day.
I've been out there thinking about the day and the way it has gone. And it seems to me that now I need
to make a few personal statements for a variety of reasons.
The day began for me when I walked into this house, and Tilly said to me... Excuse me. Tilly!
Just a moment, take a sec. Everything has been ready, it's been ready. All right, all right, Tilly,
sit down. Mr. and Mrs. Panters, this is Miss Matilda Biss, who's been a member of this family for 22
years, and who today has been making a great deal of trouble. Sit down, Tilly. How is it that we know
who we are?
We might wake up in the night, disoriented, and wonder where we are. We may have forgotten where the
window, or the door, or the bathroom is, or who is sleeping beside us. We may think, perhaps, that we
have lived through what we just dreamed of. Or we may wonder if we are now still dreaming. But we never
wonder who we are.
However confused we might be about every other particular of our existence, we always know that it is
us, that we are now who we have always been. We never wake up and wonder, who am I? Because our knowledge
of who we are is mediated by what we doctors of the mind call ourselves schemata, the richest
most stable and most complex memory structures we have. They are the structures which connect us to
our pasts and allow us to imagine our futures. To lose those connections would be a sign of pathology,
a pathology called amnesia. But it makes no sense to begin this story here without its history, its past. So,
Let me take you back to a proper beginning, to a time before identity has been confused.