So today my blog entry is not really anything to do with hypnosis or hypnotherapy, it is just about the fact that I have been reading the transcripts of some of the most famous and powerful speeches in history for a project I am involved in and I thought I’d share my favourite.
It is a tough choice to be honest, I mean there is Winston Churchill’s wartime speeches including phrases such “never … was so much owed by so many to so few” and “This was their finest hour.” There was John F Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you” and his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speeches, and of course the truly amazing nelson Mandela speeches, including his “free at last” words and his inauguration speech. There are of course so many others and so many memorable moments in history with the speeches delivered.
I have to say though, the one which inspires me, the one which uplifts me the most and the one which drives me, the one I enjoy reading over and over again, is one of Martin Luther King’s many brilliant speeches. There is his “I’ve never seen the promised land” speech which was his final speech before his assassination, but my favourite is the one labelled with those immortal words “I have a dream.”
Of course, the context of the speech adds to its importance, the bravery of the man standing up to the country and world he found himself in, the conviction, the belief and the beauty of how he expressed the words, it makes me feel emotional when you put it all together. I think it is well worth investing the time to watch the clip below whereby Martin Luther King delivered his speech to 250,000 civil rights supporters on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in August 1963, which many believe led to the 1964 Civil Rights Act in the US.
Here is the central and most famous part of the speech:
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true mean 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 slave and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the 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 transform( 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 colour 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 down 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 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 our hope. This is the faith that I will 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.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
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 slopes 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 molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And when this 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 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.’
I find it breathtaking. Amazing stuff.
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