9. "I Have A Dream"

1	The protests of the summer of 1963
	were beginning to bear fruit as companies
	began to hire black people when they hadn't before,
	and there was more integration than ever before.

2	President Kennedy asked for a civil rights bill
	from Congress to end segregation, yet still,
	the biggest change was among black Americans
	who had a new pride, and were beginning to stand.

3	The culmination of events took place in August
	with the March on Washington to protest unjust
	conditions and demand "jobs and freedom"
	-- on August 28th, they marched on Washington.

4	More than 250,000 Americans were there,
	of every race and religion, and from everywhere.
	At the Lincoln Memorial, they heard King exclaim
	that he had a dream, which history acclaims.

5	And the quarter of a million Americans asked 
	that Congress immediately complete its task;
	indeed, its duty, and pass the new law
	-- it passed, but it was a law JFK never saw.

6	The President who had spoken to the nation
	and said that discrimination must be brought to an end,
	was cut down in Dallas late in the Fall,
	and the nation was burdened and bent by the pall.

7	But only five days after the President was killed,
	the new President spoke demanding that the bill
	for civil rights be passed immediately
	as the best way to honor John F. Kennedy.

8	And as he stood before the US Congress
	demanding that they get on with the process,
	these words echoed through the chamber from 
	President Johnson: "We Shall Overcome!"

9	It only took from that day until
	July the Second when Congress passed the bill,
	the Civil Rights Act of 1964
	which went further than any law had before.

10	No one could be kept from a public place
	-- accommodations or facilities -- on account of race,
	and much discrimination was wiped away
	-- America had entered onto a new day.

11	And the name of the Reverend Martin Luther King
	was known the world around. This would bring
	to him many honors, among them that year,
	was the Nobel Peace Prize. None could be more dear.

12	This award, King said, spoke for all those
	who had sought out justice against all its foes
	following nonviolent ways in the great quest
	-- the award was for them, as was his success.

13	Yet King was aware that the great fight
	had only begun. He knew he was right,
	but this award, he said, he would be sure
	would give him new courage that he might endure.

10. Selma to Montgomery

1	 And endure he did, as the movement marched on.
	The effort was launched to get black voters on
	the registration rolls throughout the states
	of the South. But they faced much hate.

2	Civil rights workers faced violence from
	those hidden in darkness and striking with guns
	while hidden behind hoods of cowardice,
	but it was for freedom they paid the price.

3	The fight took King to Selma that year,
	a city that was greatly torn by fear;
	a city whose populace was predominately black,
	nearly every one of whom the suffrage lacked.

4	So Dr. King launched an effort in 1965
	to register voters in Selma -- a voting rights drive.
	He led large groups to the courthouse there
	to register to vote, but they got no where.

5	In seven weeks of trying, 2000 were jailed
	and one of them was King, but the effort failed
	to stop them. The nation once more took note
	of the treatment of people who just wanted to vote.

6	But then a black marcher was shot down
	and killed one night in a nearby town.
	And King called for a march that would be
	held from Selma to Montgomery.

7	George Corley Wallace, the Governor
	of Alabama said they would never go there.
	He said the march could not take place,
	but 650 people set out on the pace.

8	They were met by a wall of so-called lawmen
	who ordered them back and attacked them then.
	Many Americans became very angry
	and thousands came to march to Montgomery.

9	Ministers, priests, rabbis, and union men
	flowed into town to join together with them.
	A US judge ordered Wallace to cease
	trying to stop the march; and insure the peace.

10	The President sent federal troops along.
	Performers came to entertain with their songs
	the three thousand who marched those five days,
	the fifty miles of road as they made their way.

11	Dr. King spoke when the reached Montgomery
	to the tens of thousands who had come to be
	a part of the effort, to this capital town,
	and King said they would not be turned around.

12	And just before that march began,
	President Johnson went to Congress to demand
	a voting rights bill, which they passed,
	and which has allowed untold votes to be cast.

13	It provided that federal registrars would go
	in to register voters where there was low
	minority registration; and literacy tests
	were limited. The issue was being addressed.


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