名演説。
今からちょうど40年前、1963年8月28日、マーチン・ルーサー・キング牧師はワシントンDCで演説をしました。それが後世に残る名演説『アイ・ハヴ・ア・ドリーム（私には夢がある）』です。今年はそれからちょうど40周年。これを記念して去る土曜日（23日）ワシントンDCのリンカーン・メモリアル公園に、多くの人が集まりました。
同様の集会は、過去1983年、1993年に行われ、今年は3回目。この『アイ・ハヴ・ア・ドリーム』は、非暴力による公民権運動の盛り上がりに大きく貢献しました。なにより象徴的だったのは、63年このスピーチを聞いた25万人の人々のうち5分の1は白人だったということです。
この全文をじっくり読んだことはなかったのですが、ネットで探したら、原文がありました。下記に載せておきます。また一部訳ですが、それもありました。キング牧師の本などを購入すれば、全文なども載っているでしょう。
これを読んでいると、まるで、歌詞のような、そして、彼の演説を聞いたりすると、まるで質のいいラップを聴いているかのように錯覚します。話のもってき方が実にうまい。教会の牧師の話、説教も非常に陶酔性があるように思いますが、もともと牧師で話のうまいキング牧師が、ソウルを込めて語る演説は圧巻です。
一部訳がでている「私には夢がある・・・」以降、さらに「ニューハンプシャーの豊穣な丘の上から，自由の鐘を鳴らそうではないか」のライン、その繰り返しはすごいですね。これをその現場で聞いていたら、間違いなく気持ちが高揚してくるでしょう。
キング牧師は、68年4月4日、メンフィスで暗殺されます。80年10月、スティーヴィー・ワンダーがアルバム『ホッター・ザン・ジュライ』を発表。そこに、キング牧師の誕生日を国民の休日にするための応援歌「ハッピー・バースデイ」が収録されました。そして、1983年、キング牧師の誕生日が国民の休日に決定。86年から実施されることになりました。
今、1月の第3月曜日はキング牧師誕生日の祝日です。それにしても、この『アイ・ハヴ・ア・ドリーム』というフレーズは、今でも有効な普遍的な言葉です。
“I Have A Dream”
by Martin Luther King, Jr,
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Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. Source: Martin Luther King, Jr: The Peaceful Warrior, Pocket Books, NY 1968
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand 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, we must face the tragic fact that 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.
So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, 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.”
(以下の訳あり）
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 desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four 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 the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together 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. This is the faith with which I return to the South. 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.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a 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.
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 snowcapped 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 molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
When we let freedom 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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上記全文の一部に関する翻訳が下記サイトにありました。
http://www.labo-global.co.jp/spc-o-word/wordpro/king/king.html
私には夢がある。いつの日にか，ジョージアの赤土の丘の上で，かつて奴隷であった者たちの子孫と，かつて奴隷主であった者たちの子孫が，兄弟として同じテーブルに向かい腰掛けるときがくるという夢を。
私には夢がある。いつの日にか，私の４人の幼い子供たちが肌の色によってではなく，人となりそのものによって評価される国に住むときが来るという夢を。私の父が死んだ土地で，メイフラワーの清教徒達が誇りとした土地で，すべての山やまから自由の鐘を鳴らそうではないか。もしアメリカが偉大な国であるのなら，これは実現されなければならない。
ニューハンプシャーの豊穣な丘の上から，自由の鐘を鳴らそうではないか。
ニューヨークの稜々たる山やまから，自由の鐘を鳴らそうではないか。
ペンシルベニアのアルゲニー高原から，自由の鐘を鳴らそうではないか。
コロラドの雪を頂いたロッキー山脈から，自由の鐘を鳴らそうではないか。
カリフォルニアの曲線の美しい丘から，自由の鐘を鳴らそうではないか。
それらばかりではない。ジョージアの石ころだらけの山，テネシーの望楼のような山，そして，ミシシッピーの全ての丘から，自由の鐘を鳴らそうではないか！
すべての山々から，自由の鐘を鳴らそうではないか！
そして私たちが自由の鐘を鳴らす時，私たちがアメリカの全ての村，すべての教会，全ての州，全ての街から自由の鐘を鳴らすその時，全ての神の子，白人も黒人も，ユダヤ人も非ユダヤ人も，新教徒もカソリック教徒も，皆互いに手を取って古くからの黒人霊歌を歌うことができる日が近づくだろう。
「自由だ，ついに自由だ，全能の神よ，感謝します。ついに我々は自由になったのだ」と
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THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON
reported by: EUR
Dr. King’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech is celebrated, too.
Saturday, tens of thousands of celebrants gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on Washington’s central mall to mark the 40th anniversary of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a dream” speech that galvanized America’s civil rights movement.
The actual speech was delivered by Dr. King on
August 28, 1963 in front of 250,000 people, one-fifth
of them white, who had turned out for the March
on Washington.
At the time, many blacks still were being denied
the right to vote. Others were murdered for trying.
Blacks and whites in the South often could not
use the same restaurants, hotels or public
restrooms and drinking fountains.
Dr. King would later be assassinated by a sniper
at a Memphis, Tennessee, motel on April 4, 1968.
The fatal shot was fired by a white man, James
Earl Ray, who died in prison in 1998.
Martin Luther King III, told Saturday’s crowd,
“I know that my father was more than a dream.”
With black suffrage long a reality, King said
the country must look to abolishing other injustices.
“We must abolish racial profiling,” he said,
“and the death penalty.
“I call on the congress to establish a system
that covers every person and every illness,” King
told the assembled crowd.
Saturday’s commemoration in downtown
Washington was the third, after similar events
in 1983 and 1993.
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